My Herniated Disc Experience

I had been having lower back pain for a while, on and off for about 3 years, ever since I hurt it while moving a heavy table at my job. You know, moving heavy furniture, what every communications employee is required to do, right? But that is another story. Back to my back.

The year 2008 was going to be IT -- the year I finally got into shape. I joined a gym, was going to a personal trainer, was working out with weights and going to aerobics several times a week. I started having a weird sensation occasionally along the back of my left hamstring -- the time I really remember noticing it the most was while reaching up to turn on a light in my boyfriend's apartment in April. It was this weird sensation, like a painful jolt running down the back of my leg. But it went away and I forgot about it. I'd sometimes feel it in aerobics class but after warming up it seemed to go away, so I figured it was a pulled hamstring or something. Come early June, I started having lower back pain, which luckily coincided with a vacation week home to visit family. I was in bed on a heating pad or ice most of that week and my back got somewhat better.

I went to my primary care doctor when I returned and told her about the back and the hamstring thing. She prescribed me vicodin and referred me to a physical therapy group. It was probably just a pulled muscle or something similar in my back.

Today I know that I should have pressed for x-rays, but I didn't know that then. But come on -- how is a physical therapist supposed to treat me for an undiagnosed ailment? Impossible, right?

Yes. Very much so. I continued with physical therapy for three months. The therapist was unconcerned about this jolt down the back of my thigh -- pulled hamstring, she said. And the back pain? Just a pulled back. They'd use ultrasound, electrostimulation and weight machines, but to no avail. My favorite technique was when she would put her elbow right over the L5-S1 and press in with her entire body's weight -- you know to "massage" that pulled muscle.

My left foot started going numb. My baby toe was staying numb 24/7. Oh that's OK, she said, it is just the pulled hamstring. Must be a nerve in there somewhere.

There was a nerve in there alright. My sciatic nerve, which was obviously irritated and should have at least prompted a "call your doctor" from her rather than another elbow massage. Idiot me went with it -- little did I realize that these were the hallmarks of a classic case of herniated disc.

Come September, I started having problems at work and during the day with my back. When I'd stand up after being seated, or get out of my car, it was as if I had to wait for a minute before I could straighten up. My foot was numb constantly by now. I started having this weird pain in and below my butt on the left side. Hamstring, right?

I went back to my primary care. Things aren't right here, I told her. She sent me for an x-ray and a referral to an orthopaedic. Of course they couldn't work me in for an appointment for several weeks.

My disc decided it didn't want to wait that long. One day I got ready for work and began the drive in. I got about a mile down the road before the pain from sitting was excruciating. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but of course now as I look back I can see how it had been steadily progressing.

The new doctor did the straight leg and push off test. I hadn't realized that I could no longer go up on my toes on my left side. Probably a bulging disc, she said, and put in for an MRI referral, which would take a full week thanks to my HMO Plan From Hell.

My pain got worse and worse. I could only stay in bed. I was off work for a week. Months earlier, I had caught two guys breaking into my car in the middle of the night, parked on the street in front of my apartment. One night while waiting for my MRI, I thought I heard people breaking into my car again. I was still asleep and not remembering that I was hurt, and I jumped up and ran to the window. Luckily, no one was breaking into my car. Unluckily, the jolt to my back was the final nail in my herniated disc's little herniated coffin.

When I woke up I couldn't walk. I could barely stand. I'd pull myself up by holding on to the dresser next to my bed, and would claw my way to the bathroom holding on to the wall. It was horrible, and very scary. When I'd stand up, it was the strangest feeling, hard to explain -- it was like I could not move my leg, but I'd tell my leg, "MOVE!" and then after a delay it'd move. It was the strangest thing I'd ever experienced.

All I knew was, this was bad. Very bad.

By this point I was ready to go to the hospital. At least three times over the long week I had to wait before I could get an MRI, I had put my shoes on and gotten my purse and was about to get my boyfriend to take me to the ER. What kept me from going was the fact that I couldn't sit to sit in the waiting room for 12 hours, but also the fact that I knew there was nothing they could do. They'd prescribe me painkillers (a future topic: the sheer volume of painkillers they give you) and send me home to wait there for a week. Personally I think it's disgraceful that I had to wait weeks at a time to get to the doctors, x-rays, MRIs -- but that is another story alltogether about the evilness of HMOs.

Finally I got my MRI. Turns out my L5-S1 disc had a "massive" herniation ("pulled back" or "disc bulge" my ass!) They told me that a large herniation was one that was 9 to 10 mm. Mine was 15 mm.

So now what? I didn't need surgery. Only whiny wimps do that. I was going to heal my back myself. Through nutrition and alternative therapies. Hell, throw a couple of steroid epidurals in there too while you're at it. I guess you know how that went by the title of this blog.