Anyone heal their herniated disc?

Tough question to answer but I can tell you that I learned to be active and live around the pain for the most part. Low impact exercise like bike riding and swimming. Weight lifting but no deadlifts or heavy squats. Look into yoga and or Pilates . A strong core and flexibility will help. And when I say core I don’t mean do endless crunches. A PT that also teaches Pilates was a big help for me. Lastly, the type of surgery recommended to “fix” your back matters. If a discectomy is recommended it’s likely an outpatient procedure and you can be back again in no time. A 3 level fusion …..not so much. I’d get atleast 2 opinions from a good surgeon. You’ll get 50 different answers from 50 different people. Be open minded to alternative type treatment (within reason). Best of luck

Most likely the disc will “heal” on its own. Once the healing phase is over the heavy lifting is needed to load the surrounding musculature and induce strengthening. There are ways to load while still in the healing and proliferative phases. If you do your due diligence and research the CPGs (clinical practice guidelines) for both physicians and physical therapists do not recommend surgery but instead recommended PT. I’m not referring to basic baby exercise bands and mini squats. A fitness forward approach to PT should including loading the spine while monitoring form. If the clinic you look into doesn’t have a rack and free weights, keep looking, and if anything don’t follow the dipshit at squat university. He makes money from over exaggerating non issues.

I’m not sure if my disc was herniated or bulging (I never got an MRI). I did 2 months of weekly PT and daily stretches and air squats. I used heat and hamstring stretches a lot.

My wife bought an inversion table. It seemed to help with pain/compression after sitting but not sure if it aided in healing.

All in all, it was about 8-9 months of active treatment before the pain was completely gone and I got my full range of motion back. I’m still nervous about running though and it’s been a year and a half since the injury.

I hope it’s way shorter for you. Wouldn’t wish that crap on anyone. Like others have said, once you’re well, work on core strength and minimize sitting if you can. Good luck.

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.

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Most likely the disc will “heal” on its own

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ugh mostly likely won't.

They can, but typically they don't.

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In addition to the other recommendations, I would also try to find a gym that has a reverse hyper machine. It safely strengthens the posterior chain…emphasis on “safely”…while decompressing the spine. It was designed by a famous power lifter (Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell) to help treat his fellow powerlifters who were always herniating discs.

Reverse Hyper

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This is interesting but expensive as hell for a home gym if that's what some people would want.

Hurt my back moving boxes mid 2019. Pretty much dealt with the pain through Mid 2021. Really started radiating down the left leg. Was very uncomfortable to sit at a desk. I had seen a chiro and the stretches and adjustments would loosen me up and make if feel better in the short term, but never got rid of it. I had been trying to stay in shape and was doing crossfit. Crossfit didn't make it worse, but it wasn't getting better. Decided to focus more on lifting with good form. Lowering the weight, removing the difficulties crossfit introduced, just really good form for squats and deadlifts. I ended up easily cruising past maxes I had in crossfit while the pain literally disappeared. I just made sure I was not going to push it to the point of having bad form and I always wore a belt and did plenty of warm up.

I've fallen off the wagon since the summer started, but still don't have any pain. I need to get back to it as I know that it was solely responsible for getting things back in order for me. I had trained for half and full ironman previously and think I had terrible muscle imbalances that popped up as soon as I quit training. The squats and deads put everything back in order. At least that's my theory.

Thanks man. That is hopeful.

Feigenbaum with Barbell Medicine was just taking about this. If I had your question, I would look into what they’ve said about it.

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Anyone heal their herniated disc?

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Man. I will be happy to talk to you in length about this.

I had a herniated disk in my neck about 4 years ago. It destroyed me. I could not work. I was extremely depressed as I was in constant pain and could only think "is this how i am going to live the rest of my life".

Chiropractors did nothing. I spend thousands on them.

I had two surgeons tell me that I would never be normal again until I had surgery. However, everything I read said once you have a surgery you almost always have more back/neck problems in the future.

Here is what worked for me.

1. Diet. Only natural foods and water. I actually think this was the least important factor, but I wanted to give my body ammo to heal.

2. Physical Therapy. I went 3 days a week and did their suggestions at home as well. I would say this was the most important factor.

3. Stretching, yoga. Again, a large factor in my healing.

If it is crushing you mentally like it did me, you may need someone to talk to. I'm happy to chat if you need it.


ETA: Once I started physical therapy, it took about 3 months to stop hurting. Once I stopped hurting, I got back in the gym and focused on my core and flexability for the first few months. Once that was strong, I started lifting again.