Hi T-Folk,
One of my good friends was unfortunately in a work accident about a year ago. Having had a 100kg+ steel cage pin her body to a workbench, she now has bulged discs at the L4/L5 and L5/S1 vertabrae. MRI and CT scans confirm this.
We know what the problem is, but not any way to fix it (or at least reduce its effects).
She can no longer lift weights (which she did a LOT), run, or do anything overly physical without moderate to high levels of pain during or after. This has affected her greatly and unfortunately her quality of life has dropped.
Does anyone out there have ANY experience or information that may help us get her back on track, and simply able to train reasonably???
Anything you can offer will be very much appreciated.
Thanks all.
Mark
from your screen name i am assuming you are in australia. if this is correct, you have some of the best Physical therapists to help you. i have a friend who owns a clinic in rowville, i believe. is that close to you? he could definitely help, he has a website. i’ll get that information and repost soon.
hope that helps
climbon
the therapists name is stuart canavan and his clinic is called rowville physiotherapy and pain centre.
The first thing i would recomend is to be evaluated by a qualified physical therapist. Any of Paul Chek’s Level 3 or Level 4 practitioners would be great for this. Go to his website and see if there are any in your area. Next, her spine needs to be stabiized using exercises designed to train her inner unit (tva, multifidus, ect). When there is a disc injury it is shown that the multifidus muscles atrophy rather quickly thus reducing the stability of the injured segment. Flexibility also has to be assesed as well as weakness in the muscles that are inervated by the nerves that run out of those two segements. Good Luck
Oh, I should also add that 20 odd sessions of physio haven’t yielded any lasting results, only temporary relief for her. And she can’t stretch her left hamstring more than half of her original range of motion (with leg fully straight).
We’ve already done a search of T-Mag and found some info from way back. Would appreciate anything anyone has to offer.
Cheers,
M
what did her treatment consist of? i would imagine some joint mobilizations, soft tissue work, and core stabilization as previously mentioned would be helpful.
climbon
Quick replies! You guys are really on the ball…! Posted my second message without realising anyone had added anything.
OK, yes I’m in Australia Climbon. Haven’t heard of Rowville as a town, but am searching now. I’m sure the YellowPages people will be able to point me in Stuart’s direction.
Her physio treatment, as far as I’m aware, consisted of massage, ultrasound treatment, some minor mobilisation, and small amounts of traction. By core stabilisation work I’m assuming you mean the strengthening exercises Boss14 recommends - I believe there’s the odd article on T-Mag about this kind of training, I’ll try to dig something up.
Part of the problem with physio is that she has most pain in her left hamstring, which has now been diagnosed as referred/sciatic pain. So 75% of the physio was done on her leg when it really didn’t need it.
Boss14, do you know if Chek has any practitioners in Australia? Actually a quick search of his website should give me that info.
Thankyou very much folks. I’m sure she’ll get excited about training again with some of the informative info we’re getting.
Mark
I prolapsed my lowermost disc about 6 years ago. I was in agony for a few months and could not even walk or stand up for more than 3 minues. I had constant sciatica in my left leg. The medical profession were pathetic and I basically rehabbed myself. How did I do it?
Firstly I had 3 cortisone injections into my spine at two week intervals. One doctor recommended this approach while others derided it. I thought it worked. This decreased the pain and inflammation around the disc, which enabled me to begin low level exercise (swimming and stretching). Then a month or two later I began to lift weights choosing exercises with little or no spinal compression. I started to do some ab work too. The pain began to change from agonising sciatica to lower back pain. The referred pain was becoming localised in the actual injury site. I tried acupuncture but in the acute stages of the injury my back was too inflamed and it worsened it. However, once I began to recover, acupuncture and massage began to feel good.
After six months I started to play some sports. A year later I was back playing rugby and cricket, and lifting hard, although it would be more than two years before I deadlifted or squatted again. My back is still occasionally sore but I lead a full life again.
I was disappointed with doctors, physios, chiropractors and virtually everybody I came into contact with. I designed a step-by step recovery program for myself and implemented it, really listening to what my body was telling me. I think I recovered by becoming more flexible, strengthening my core so that my actual vertebrae and discs did less work, and letting my spine heal itself.
I did think the cortisone shots helped and I took some pretty strong pain killers and muscle relaxants in the acute stages as I could not relax and the body needs to relax to heal. Of course I weaned myself off these drugs.
I hope this can help you.
Try to find a qualified manual therapist. Again that should not be hard in australia with some of the great minds like maitland and more recently butler teaching there. (I think they teach around Queensland, not sure if that is close to you since I have no knowledge of geography in Australia) If you can find someone who has studied their work or better yet under them, I think they would be able to help. Maitland trained Butler who later went on to study pain and the nervous system. His work has led to some new understanding of pain and the nervous system’s involvement. From the information you have given, I would think that joint mobilzations and nervous system mobilization (tensioners and sliders) would help your friend return to the gym. However, she should still see a qualified physio. to properly implement this strategy given her specific presentation. The core stabilization exercises are similar to what boss wrote about and there is an article by Don Alessi on this site that deals with transverse abdominis. (he sites research performed by an australian…look for Jull) so far I haven’t ran across any exercises on this site for multifidus. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, I will do my best to answer them.
climbon
Really pains me to hear about disc problems because I myself herniated my L4/L5 disc about 2 years ago. I was doing deadlifts and the weight got too far away from my body and voila, I could barely walk. I was off my feet for a solid 3 months which sucked because I’m a super active guy. I didn’t get any injections or even go through any physical therapy because I read where most people achieve relief just over time. That actually worked. Although depressing and hard to get through, just letting the body do its thing seemed to really help. I’m sure this depends on the severity of the herniation as mine was not overly severe. Now, I’m training 5 times a week and squatting 225 for about 10 reps (might not seem like a lot but its good for me). Can’t say I’m ever going to deadlift again but straight-legged deadlifts I can actually do. Try not to do lower back stretches in the morning as this reduces back stability for the whole day. Also, one good thing I’ve picked up is my posture. I’ve learned to have super good posture both at rest and during exercise. I still have lower back pain almost all the time but its bearable. You just do your best. Doing back extensions was recommended by a physical therapist and those helped strengthen my lower back muscles really well as I was rehabbing. You can do these on a physioball or whatever and add weight as needed. Just watch the back posture. Anyways, that was too long of a post. All in all, get it looked at by good doctors/therapists and let it rest! Oh yeah, and after I healed up, massage feels great and relieves a lot of the general aches you’ll have. GOOD LUCK!
Mark, you might check out an article written by Louie Simmons.
He had disc problems, and he used reversehypers to rehab his back. This excerzise doesn’t put stress on the discs. You can do a search on www.elitefts.com. Hope this helps.
Erik
Sorry to hear of the injury. I have had this happen myself (about ten years ago), and both my training partners have experienced similar injuries in the last two years. I agree with a couple of others in this thread that finding a really good therapist would be your best bet. However, I (and my training partners) live in an extremely rural area in Canada, and don’t have ready access. What we all did our rehab on was the same. We saw chiropractors, who seemed to help (a little), but the two biggest helps were an inversion table and a reverse hyperextention machine.
The inversion table was great to releive the pressure on the disc, and therefore the nerve, and we all experienced significant reduction in pain from this. There was some initial pain involved in getting into the inverted position, as the muscles tended to spasm in an attempt to prevent further trauma to the area. But eventually, the pain subsided and we experienced relief.
The reverse hyper worked wonders. It acted as both traction and strengthening, and we all got to using significant weight. The muscles got much stronger, creating greater stability. If you know Matt Dimmel’s story, you’ll see where I’m going with that.
All in all, we have all enjoyed virtually full recovery. Dave’s injury was almost a year and a half ago- he just squatted 455x3 about a week ago. Shawn’s injury was last fall- and he just squatted 475, and deadlifted 445x3.
The most important thing to do is to have faith. She WILL recover, fully, if she wants to and does what is needed.
Good luck!!!
Good thread… and I just want to share a few good things I’ve come across, having read TMag for 4 years and having gone through my share of back problems. Many of the best ideas I’ve received came from reading this magazine, so thank you !
I’ve had l5-s1 problems since 1998. I ruptured it, and was told I should get surgery, and get it fused b/c of the size of the rupture. I took the conservative route.
lesson number 1: Get an MRI as early as possible and keep pushing for one. I know there are studies that say it’s not a perfect diagnostic tool, but here’s just my experience: They take you much more seriously when you can visibly see the herniated disc.
Good things I’ve found:
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Inversion Machines, instead of the inversion boots. Get one that supports you in your midsection and you hang upside down, for decompression and gentle stretching.
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Reverse-Hyper Machine … totally awesome. And it helped me rehab from my Fusion at L5-S1 tremendously. If I ever tweak my back now, all i need to do is a couple of high rep/very low weight sets that day and maybe 1-2 days more, and I usually knock out any weird pain or twinges.
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ART - Active Release Techniques. I found out about this on Testosterone.net, CHECK THIS OUT. It’s also amazing for rotator cuffs, weird crap your body accumulates after years of playing sports, being a desk jockey, and of course back problems. The biggest thing that blew me away with ART is they showed me literally why the disc came out, because of my psoas muscles and core midsection.
Take care of it as soon as possible, but go purchase a few sessions with an ART practictioner, and invest in one or both machines… it will save you ALOT of money in the long run, and for you guys that have sciatica that comes and goes, this advice is probably even more important for you to consider. Don’t take my word for it, just check it out. For ART, I could tell in the first session that it rocked, and that it was the right thing I needed. Everyone I know who’s done it says the same thing… .
Best to you, and hang in there man
Thanks again for all the input!
I’m taking notes madly and learning heaps here. Soon I’ll work with my friend to create and start some form of a basic rehab program, and hopefully find a properly qualified rehab professional that you guys have spoken about.
Glad to hear a lot of you have had a full, or near full recovery!
Hi guys,
I’m Mark’s friend, Bec, that he posted about with the buldged discs & sciatica problem.
Just want to say thanks to all those that have posted with info & experiences so far… please keep it coming!!! We really appreciate it!
With your assistance we’re starting to get some ideas on where to look for more help on the matter & where to start with my own personal rehab & making a program that will suit the injuries.
So far doctors & therapists have proved quite useless - there’s been one diagnosis after another and they’ve all been different!
To my physio’s credit, he kept pushing the doctors to investigate further (originally it was diagnosed as a hamstring strain) and through his persistence I was finally allowed to have scans done & get some correct answers. Up to now I’ve had an ultasound done on my leg (which returned no abnormalities in the muscle), a CT scan on my lumbar spine (this showed that there were buldged discs but they weren’t sure if they were pushing on nerves) and just last week an MRI. The MRI finally proved that there are buldged discs at L4/L5 & L5/S1 & they are pushing on nerves causing sciatic pain. It also showed that there is an absence of the water that should be in the centre of the discs - something the specialist said you’d expect to see in a 40yr old, not a 20yr old.
It’s been a frustrating & painful 14 months… the thing that really kills me is not being able to train during this time - training & sculpting my body was my life!
To those of you who have had similar experiences, my heart goes out to you! I understand what you’ve been through/are going through and the impact it has on your training and in turn, other aspects of your life.
I am now getting the go ahead to continue with light training - strengthen areas around the injury to support it & take some of the pressure off the nerve.
The specialist has said that, in time, it will heal, so I’m positive that if I take the right steps now with rehabbing it, I’ll be back in the squat rack before long!
Thanks again all - getting tips & info from all of you with experience is giving me hope! I feel more positive now that I will be back bodybuilding again in the near future!
Bec.