The story that led me to go for my microdiscectomy

Here I start my story of my almost full year of living with sciatic pain in my right butt cheek and down my entire right leg. This injury I believe initially happened almost 5 months prior to tweaking my back. I'll explain it as best as I can.

The initial injury occurred Spring of 2011 when I was hanging on a tree branch. The branch snapped and I landed flat on the ground. I wouldn't say that I feel high off the ground at all, just hard and flat! I managed to get up and walk away no problems except for feeling a bit winded. Now I should've noticed the signs right away with random days of back pain at the office and yes I probably should have gone to the doctor but I decided to take care of the pain on my own with some stretches and Tylenol back pain medicine.


Thanksgiving weekend of 2011 and the dog jumped on the bed early in the morning when I was still half asleep I flung up as quick as I could and yelled at the dog and at the same time screamed out loud in agonizing pain. I can't even begin to explain how much pain. I felt immobilized, my back was tight as hell I couldn't straighten it out, I for sure could not bend over, I moved slower than a snail and it hurt like hell every step I took. We were a hour from the closest hospital and I knew that sitting in a car was the last place I would wanted to be however I decided to stick out the car ride home- it nearly took us 5.5 hrs as we got caught on in traffic :( I was screaming and crying the whole way home not knowing what the hell was wrong with me, it was a pain I had never in my life experienced. If someone said out of 10 how would you rate your pain I would've said at the time 1 million. By the time we got home, I went straight to bed. I figured maybe resting a good nights sleep I would be back to normal the next morning.



Boy was I wrong... I barley slept at all having muscle spasms in my right leg calf and thigh all night, in the morning I tried to walk to the car down just three steps was nearly impossible crying and screaming and there was no way in hell I could bend again to get back in the car, however I tried. My boyfriend called the ambulance and we went to the hospital.

The nurse that examined me had said it was sciatic pain... now sciatic pain just so you know is a symptom not a injury itself... they made me take an x-ray which came back normal and they gave me 2 Tylenol 3s and told me "it's just sciaitic pain my advice is just get back to your normal routine, do not lay in bed" at that point I was pretty pissed off because this doc still couldn't tell me anything and getting back to my normal routine seemed impossible- as all I could do was lay in bed.

A few days later I visited my family doctor and he had said the same thing only he tried to move around some muscle groups and pushing around different spots on my back. He prescribed me some T3's and Naproxen tablets 500mg twice daily and booked a MRI appointment for me and a referral for physio therapy. Now these med's really were not helping at all. I got my boyfriend to go out and buy some RubA535 as well as Voltaren to use on my tight muscles in my leg. I was getting severe leg spasms every 2-3 hours. I could not sit, stand, lay, walk. Nothing.... I had to wait 3 months for my MRI.

After about 6 weeks of this pain I continued with physio twice a week for 8 months. My MRI revealed that I had a herniated disk in L4/L5. This herniation was pinching on my sciatic nerve. Now around March and April it was getting slightly better with physio but I still was no where near my normal self and still could not resume my normal routine. I had acupuncture needles in my butt/low back and right leg nearly every 2-3 weeks while he taught me stretches and exercises that I could do at home. After each physio visit I sat on the TENS machine for 15 minutes 4 pads on my upper butt and low back.

After my MRI results were sent to my family doctor he had referred me to a few spinal clinics for a surgery consultation. Now this was the last thing on my mind but I knew that I better search out all possible options. The average disk herniation will heal itself in 6-8 weeks. Now with mine I had a fragment about the size of a dime compressing my sciactic nerve. I was lucky and got a appointment in to see a surgeon in Hamilton in February of 2012 only 4 months after the initial injury.I continued with physio still twice a week.

By this time I still was not back to normal routine, in fact bending was still out of the question. Walking far or more than 5 minutes, driving impossible. Muscle spasms now seemed to be minimal due to acupuncture and TENS.

After speaking with the Nero surgeon she recommended that we wait and see another 5 months of physio would do for me as I had come quite far from day one. I continued with physio and massage treatments for 5 moths to visit her again and she booked my surgery date for Aug 2012 to have a Microdiscectomy.

I figured there was no point in going to physio anymore so I stopped. and just waited for my surgery date.

This is the story of my life pre-surgery that led me to the decision to go for it. I was researching online for weeks about people's reviews mostly negative. If you are suffering from any of the above keep reading my posts to see how the process is coming along!

Thanks for reading if you have any questions please message me.