Sciatica from L5-S1 disc.... choosing a treatment option

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mild bulge in my L5-S1 disc. Nothing that warrants surgery, but they want to do an injection there to see if it will work.

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I did the injection and then started physical therapy. I had to get 1 more injection a few months later. That was 14 years ago, and I have not had pain since then. I did go on to lose some weight and I now stretch daily to make sure that I am loose and not putting extra pressure on my back.

I got my disc bulge from squatting heavy weight with unsafe form. The pain was terrible for an entire year. At first I thought it was just a bad lumbar strain, like most other people think when they tweak their back. X ray obviously didn’t show anything, but the MRI showed a disc protrusion in my l5 s1.

The best thing you can do is stop doing whatever is aggravating the injury, and take NSAIDs. Mine was an overuse injury from lifting so I simply stopped squatting and all lower body lifts were out of the questions. Eventually pain the subsided after 7-8 months of rest and I was pain free.

The pain from a disc bulge is not so much a “sharp” pain as it is a dull, achey pain. I couldn’t sit for more than 20 minutes without getting a dull, achey pain in my lower back. Whenever that happened, I simply got a heating pad and laid down on my bed and rested in the supine position. Eventually the ache would go away