Finally, some relief
Over the past 18 months I've had lots of ups and downs with my back. At first I seemed to make progress with various PT modalities but then neurological symptoms began and seemed to only worsen.
Starting in July 2021, after a range session at my golf course, my lower back was pretty inflamed. I had tried some things at home from prior knowledge of recovering from back strains and bought some equipment to help. Indeed it did, at first, but then I kind of relapsed at which point around November 2021, I engaged some professional help.
In May of 2022, the back strained turned into glute pain when I stood for too long (5+ minutes) as well pain that would radiate down my left leg and also cause numbness and tingling of my left foot.
The continued PT and deep tissue massage would help but not for long. It started to feel like I was just treating the symptoms. After PT and massage with a focus on relieving the glute tightness it would seem to cause the pain/numbness to abate for awhile though but eventually it became clear that wasn’t the root cause.
I went to the first doc could see who took my feedback, and an x-ray and declared “spinal stenosis” but saw no need to operate. I left feeling not listened to and my pain/symptoms dismissed.
Finally, got into see the surgeon who was my first choice, and he immediately ordered an MRI which showed a 9mm bulge in my L4/L5 pressing on the nerve root which explained all my symptoms. Given the timeline of how long I had had those symptoms it was improbably that it would retract on it’s own.
Yesterday, this surgeon performed a microdisectomy and already today I have no more leg pain or numbness when standing. The bulge ended up being 25mm, quite a bit larger than MRI revealed.