Around this time last year I was a couple of months in to a daily routine of lower back pain and an occasional shooting sensation running up and down my left leg. In fact, as I recall, the issue went as far back as May of 2011. It's a bit of a harrowing exerience, sitting on the end of your bed, and crouching over to put on your socks, only to feel a massive pull followed by an intense stabbing sensation in your lower back. I suppose I should have been concerned about it at the time, but as someone who has a history of pulling muscles, particularly in my back, I just kind of presumed that this was more of the same, and carried on in spite of myself.
Generally with pulled muscles, the pain starts to subside after just a couple of days, and even at it's worst, the pain is still more than manageable. This was different. My concern for the issue grew as days turned to weeks, which then turned to months with no end in sight. There wasn't even a slight dimming of the pain to be honest. It was constant and consistant in it's presence. Essentially, I felt like shit, but carried on in blissful ignorance. Of course after a few weeks had passed I was all too aware that this was not just another pulled muscle, but I had become that concerned about it, that I was actively avoiding going to see the doctor because I was legitimately worried that it was going to require spinal surgery, a prospect which, at the tender age of twenty four, did not appeal to me in the slightest.
So anyway, late last year I bit the bullet and decided to go and see my GP, who scheduled an MRI scan. (Claustrophobes beware, they are not fun) When she received the pictures of the scan, it showed quite a bit of "erosion" of my L4,L5 in my lower spinal column. Essentially, a disc in the lumbar region of my back had desintegrated to a point where mobilty was causing friction and that friciton is what was causing the pain.
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| A picture of my spine. The red ring circles the L4,L5 and as you can see, the discs appear to be compressed on one side. |
The next step was to visit a neuro surgeon, who had been sent on a copy of my MRI scans. Before even looking at them he called me into his office, shook my hand and asked me to do a number of basic exercises, checked my reflexes etc. and then told me "Without even looking at these scans, I'm happy to tell you that you don't need surgery!", which obviously provided instantaneous relief. He went on to explain that surgery is only ever performed in these cases, when the subjects movement and ability to do basic stretches and exercises is impeded by the pain, which in my case it was not. He told me that Physiotherapy, followed by an extensive regime of Pilates would provide not only relief, but would actually strengthen my core muscles to the point that it would prevent any further damage being done to my back.
For some reason, the idea of Pilates classes didn't really appeal to me, and I remember expressing a lack of interest in doing it in subsequent weeks, until somebody suggested that I consider Yoga as an alternative. Truthfully, that didn't seem any more appealing to me, but after a short while I remembered hearing about DDP Yoga, which is essentially a compilation of several different Yoga and Fitness excercises crammed in to a DVD set. I remembered watching DDP (a former professional wrestler) on WCW as a kid, and I did recall that he had experienced problems with the exact same part of his spine (L4, L5) over a decade ago, before taking up yoga and eventually going on to set up his own Yoga and Fitness program. It was only a couple of weeks after starting the "Red Hot Core" excercises on the DVD, that I began to feel rapid relief. The shooting pain that formerly ran down my left leg is all but gone, and aside from the occasional tug, my back feels as loose as it did a decade ago.
True Story.
