My girlfriend is going to a Neurosurgeon Friday to get a ruptured L5 looked at. Apparently the a rupture causes the fluid in the disc to leak, which is a highly inflammatory protein, and inflames the sciatic nerves… and they say she has degenerative disk disease. This means all of the disks are smaller than normal, usually something that happens with age.
I just want to hear the thoughts of T-Men/Woman as far as exercise goes after an injury/disease like this. Is it possible to get back the gym doing squats and deadlifts? What are the risks of heavy weight lifting or can she benefit from it?
Shes going to doctors and getting oppions but I always feel “most” docs will take the easy way out and say “no intense exercise”. Although I believe everyone can benefit from weight training, I’m a little scared with this because I know nothing of it and it’s my beautiful litte girl thats dealing with it 
Every response is appreciated.
Let me get this straight: Your girlfriend ruptured her L5 which is resulting in sciatic nerve inflammation and you’re concerned that she won’t be able to squat or deadlift heavy?
Really??? Why aren’t you asking what she can do to heal this injury? If you really care about this girl, that’s the question you should be asking…
I said she’s going to a Neurosurgeon Friday. Why would I come to a forum to ask how to heal a ruptured disk?
She’s getting the help she needs. The Neurosurgeon is going to tell her whether or not she needs surgery and then we go from there. What I’m asking is once she gets the help she needs will she still be able to train. SHE wants to know.
How did she rupture her disk?
We don’t know. The doc said it could have been anything. It started about 2 months ago.
What type of exercise routine was she on during that time?
With disc injuries, it can generally take upwards of 6 months with minimal activity to allow for the disc to heal and scar down properly. If you rush things, symptoms will only return and will result in a roller coaster of pain levels.
BackInAction’s questions definitely need to be answered. I would also add the following questions to be answered:
- What are her current symptoms?
- How much disc degeneration has been occurring?
- Any vertebral damage or just disc pathology?
- What type of rehabilitative work has she been doing?
- Any other history of injury to her back?
- Which direction was the rupture and other bulges?
@BackInAction: Honestly nothing serious. She ran and did bodyweight stuff but was wanting to start lifting. She has done a couple workouts with me but it was a while back and I watched her really good. She had perfect form on everything.
[quote]LevelHeaded wrote:
With disc injuries, it can generally take upwards of 6 months with minimal activity to allow for the disc to heal and scar down properly. If you rush things, symptoms will only return and will result in a roller coaster of pain levels.
BackInAction’s questions definitely need to be answered. I would also add the following questions to be answered:
- What are her current symptoms?
- How much disc degeneration has been occurring?
- Any vertebral damage or just disc pathology?
- What type of rehabilitative work has she been doing?
- Any other history of injury to her back?
- Which direction was the rupture and other bulges?
[/quote]
I’m deffenitly not trying to rush things. I just want to be better informed on rehabilitive training for the back from other weight lifters.
- When she sits she gets a sharp pain in her back and a dull pain in her left leg followed by it getting numb.
- She had an MRI done last week and they said she had minimal degeneration.
- Just disc pathology.
- None other than adjustments at the chiropractor. She or I don’t know what to do at this point other than wait for the Neurologist examination. The chiropractor said further adjustments wouldn’t do anything and weren’t anyway.
- She’s “pulled her back out” before but idk if that would have anything to do with it.
- Both the rupture and bulge were posterior.
Thanks
How did she “pull her back out” ? Lifting weights or just during normal activity?
What types of body weight exercises does she do? What is her hip mobility like? Adequate core stability? Has she been following the typical female approach to abdominal training and performing tons of crunches, sit ups, etc?
What exercises did you have her perform during the couple workouts she did with you and with what load did she use? When did she start doing these workouts with you and how often did she workout with you?
Please do not take this as an attack, I’m just trying to get your background, but do you have any background in strength and conditioning and for judging technique for lifts?
[quote]LevelHeaded wrote:
How did she “pull her back out” ? Lifting weights or just during normal activity?
What types of body weight exercises does she do? What is her hip mobility like? Adequate core stability? Has she been following the typical female approach to abdominal training and performing tons of crunches, sit ups, etc?
What exercises did you have her perform during the couple workouts she did with you and with what load did she use? When did she start doing these workouts with you and how often did she workout with you?
Please do not take this as an attack, I’m just trying to get your background, but do you have any background in strength and conditioning and for judging technique for lifts? [/quote]
Normal activity. The day it started hurting she woke up with the pain. She didn’t even exercise the day before.
She did push-ups mainly along with sprints or jogging. She doesn’t have a gym membership, just does stuff outside.
Hip mobility is great. Core stability wasn’t awesome but she didn’t do anything too strenuous.
There were maybe a total of 4 workouts she did at my house. I think she got up to 95lbs on squat and sumo deadlift (not on the same day). That’s probably the heaviest exercises she did.
I have a certification but it’s not very special. I’m working on my ISSA cer. right now. I spend everyday doing research on training and nutrition and I’ve spent the last year training for powerlifting. I don’t take offense to your question but I do know what a proper squat and deadlift look like.
Has anybody else had to deal with a ruptured disk? I read of people coming back from bulges but not of ruptures.
Thanks.
Ok update… She’s been given steroid shots to see if it heals on it’s own. If not she has surgery in October.
Replies are appreciated.
[quote]chazdaman wrote:
Ok update… She’s been given steroid shots to see if it heals on it’s own. If not she has surgery in October.
Replies are appreciated.[/quote]
I’m assuming you mean corticosteroid shots. How would this help her heal?
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
[quote]chazdaman wrote:
Ok update… She’s been given steroid shots to see if it heals on it’s own. If not she has surgery in October.
Replies are appreciated.[/quote]
I’m assuming you mean corticosteroid shots. How would this help her heal?[/quote]
It’s just to help with the pain. The neurosurgen said they usually heal in 12 weeks and to wait it out.
What king of rehab goes into an injury like this?