Questions to ask Dr.

[BBall6]

History:

Injured disc between L4 and L5 senior year in HS (bulging). I pinched sciatic and lumbar nerve when the back had spasms and tightened up.

Through constant core exercising and much stretching I was able to keep it relatively under control through college and about 4 years afterward.

I re-injured it about 20 months ago and it was locked up tight with no relief for a month. My doc gave me a steroid shot and a methylprednisolone dose pack and was on muscle relaxants for 30 days. The back finally let go after about 35 days of being constricted. The doc said it could take up to a year for it to get back to normal. (The normal I new before it locked up).

Well 20 months later, I still can't play but 20-30 minutes of basketball after warming up my core and taking about 600mg of ibuprofen before it starts getting inflamed and tightening up. Then I'm pretty inflamed for about 2-3 days after that. Same thing happens when I do very light squats (135#s). Cleans are out of the question and it even gets aggravated picking up heavy barbells from the rack.

I went back to my dr. a week ago and we got x-rays and and MRI. The radiology report says that there is damage between the L4-L5 and the L5-S1. It doesn't say which is which, just that there is a bulging disc, a protruding disc and that one of those two is torn.

I've been reading through a lot of posts and have seen a lot of your stories and a lot of surgeries, but I definitely don't want to resort to that yet.


Some of the questions I want to ask the back specialist are:

What can I do that won't make it worse?
Will it get any better on its own?
Should any of my therapy be removed, if so what (a lot of ball excercises, ab work, oblique, back extensions with no weight, hyper-extensions, supermans, pelvic lift with feet or legs on the ball, etc & a lot of stretching and some yoga and a massage about every 2-3 weeks.)
My PCP gave me meloxicam and cyclobenaprine (anti inflammatory and muscle relaxant). If I take the anti-inflammatory before I go to play bball and it doesn't get inflamed and a muscle relaxant the next day to keep it from getting tight, would there be anything wrong with doing that once a week?
If we do a cortisone shot, does it have a shorter and shorter affect every time I have to go back and get one?

Any other questions I should ask him while I'm there? I'll update this as I think of more.

Thanks guys!

[JohnnyVegas]

I have one extruded and a couple of bulging disks. I didn't want surgery, so I did spinal decompression which made the pain go away in the day-to-day, but not under the stress of lifting. It took more than four years, but I am back in the gym and have been able to lift heavy with no problems except the occasional warning twinge when I do leg presses and standing calf lifts (need to switch to seated).

I don't have any specific advice, but my experience is that spinal decompression works for some that don't want surgery, but significant recovery can take several years. I may still need surgery, but I will put it off as long as possible, and right now I am pain free and doing better than any time since the injury.

[BBall6]

Thanks, my PCP offers spinal decompression in house so I may start trying that. How often do you do it?

The specialist said its all just about pain management. We're going to try the cortisone shot after I'm done with my meloxicam and see what that does. I would just like to be able to play bball competitively again and get back to doing some better leg workouts.