re: Anyone heal their herniated disc?

Yep. Still not perfect, and I am careful, but have avoided surgery and am able to stay active. I had L5-S1 herniation with resultant stenosis causing lower back pain and radiculopathy. I had a couple of epidural steroid injections which were followed by improvement in the pain in fairly short order and over a longer period of time, disappearance of the radiculopathy.

I play tennis, but avoid hard courts, try to avoid sitting in on position for long periods of time and am generally very careful about how I lift. I play tennis regularly, and in the gym, I do trap bar dead lift, squats plenty of ab exercises and have very good lower body and core strength, which I firmly believe has helped me. I will have a minor exacerbation from time to time, but nothing like the original insult.

I am a surgeon, and sought a number of opinions from colleagues, many of whom recommended microdiscectomy. The tipping opinion was from an older colleague who had a well respected orthopaedics practice, but now just does office consultations. His rec was to try to rehab and strengthen. So far so good about 5 years past the original episode.