Herniated discs suck

Celebrex helped me some. Along with rest. After that, PT mostly on my own. Mine did heal some over the past few years and are much less protruded.

Surgery is probably the only thing that will fix it

L3-4 posterior disc bulge. Opted to do PT. I developed a yoga routine for it, which helps with occasional stiffness and i would recommend the same. Now doing deadlifts and squats to make the muscles surrounding it stronger.

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Identify the cause - mine was tight hips specifically the front hip flexors on my right side were very tight and the glutes on my left side were very tight which caused sort of a twisting rotation in my pelvis and just crunched on those discs.

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Could you give some more details on what stretches you did/do? A guide/video or something?

For the front of hips I did couch stretches and ATG split squats and for the back of hips I did elevated pigeon on an incline bench. The key with all is to regress them as much as necessary to avoid pain and be very active in the stretch. On the pigeons I would lean forward to get a better stretch and then come back up to relax for several reps. Id also do a set of pulses where im using the glute that's being stretched to push my body up. It makes it a strengthening exercise instead of just constantly yanking and pulling on the tissue. The pigeons especially can irritate sciatica if you have it so be careful with it and regress it so that you don't irritate the nerves by elevating more or adding more incline. I also found that rotating your torso towards your knee helps take pressure off the nerve. On the couch stretch you want to pay attention to your pelvic tilt and on the split squat try to keep your back leg straight. Elevate your front foot on some weight plates or stairs or whatever you have and progress to holding dumbbells for reps

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I did these 2-3 days a week along with some other work but these are the 3 plus the back extension that I feel helped the most.

I keep going back n forth on having surgery or not (which is scheduled for end of month). My symptoms have recently subsided substantially and I'm only getting occasional numbness in my calf and my leg falls asleep when I'm sitting down.

The sharp shooting pain, pins & needles and numb foot has gone away. I assume that's a positive sign

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Could you give some more details on what stretches you did/do? A guide/video or something?

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There’s endless videos for hip strengthening and mobility on YouTube. It’s just a matter of what you can and want to do. I’ve been doing more hip mobility and strengthening the last 2-3 weeks and already notice a difference. A ton of back issues stem from the hips and down to the feet surprisingly. There’s a bunch of muscles in there that need to be woken up. The back just accommodates until it can’t anymore. There’s some real good PT videos that explain why certain moves help certain issues.