Herniated Disc Update #9 - One Year Later

It's been just over a year since my L3-L4 disc decided to blow up so it's time for a final update on my saga. 

After trying pain management with medication and epidural steroid injections as well as physical therapy for over five months, nothing improved enough to make it through the day without extreme pain.  I was finally ready to consult with a neurosurgeon about this.  My neurosurgeon came highly recommended by a number of people I trusted, so when he said he could fix this and make me feel better, I decided to try a surgical intervention.

Seven months ago I had a laminectomy and discectomy to relieve pressure on my nerve.  While the surgery went well, it took much longer than my neurosurgeon predicted for me to feel 100% again, which made me question my decision to have surgery in the first place.  You hear so many tales of back surgery gone wrong, and the longer it took for me to feel better, the more nervous I became.  Had my surgeon said something along the lines of "your nerve has been compressed for so long that it will take quite a while for it to settle down" I would have accepted the continued leg pain as part of the recovery instead of worrying that the surgery didn't solve anything.

That said, surgery was the key to healing my herniated disc.  I can say that now.  I can't even remember when my leg pain finally went away thanks to my other medical event, which was a grand mal seizure two months after surgery.  As I was dealing with a new set of issues, the leg pain went on the back burner.  I suspect it was somewhere around January that it finally resolved.

As for my back, my physical therapist told me that after having surgery - any surgery on any part of the body - it's changed forever.  So I need to be aware of that and not do anything that might bring on another disc problem.  I will not do any kind of jumping/high impact exercise ever again.  And that's OK - better to lose the jump rope than to go through that painful hell. 

I've been gently easing back into exercise.  I walked for about four weeks before adding in a little bit of running.  I like running and want to do it.  My hopes are to build up to running three miles.  However, if I start to have pain, I will stop.  It's not worth getting hurt again.  I don't see myself ever running long distances - I think my days of doing a half marathon, or probably even a 10K are done.  But if I can run a few miles and feel good, I'll be content with that.

There is a happy ending to my herniated disc.  It took a lot of trying different things to get to this point.  It was the most painful thing I've ever gone through; pain that was 24/7, pain that hurt so badly that I was ready to hurl myself out of the car at one point.  It's not something I would wish on anyone.  But if you've discovered my blog while searching for someone who has gone through this and come out OK on the other side, I want to give you some hope that it can get better.  Hang in there.