Saying Hello

[IanHogan]

I was happy to find this forum, although truth be told, I sincerely hope I've forgotten all about it in 6 months or so!

I'm a 39 year old male, and facing new unwelcome back issues. Roughly April 2013, I started to notice a pain in my lower back and right glute if I stood still for a prolonged period of time. It would be relieved with sitting or squatting, but sustained standing became problematic. Somewhere over the summer, I began to notice that prolonged walking was also painful, and began to feel some referral pain in my right foot / ankle / back of calf area.

The symptoms seemed to correspond to piriformis syndrome, and given that I had been doing a fair amount of weightlifting at the gym over the past 2 years in the form of back squats, deadlifts, and power cleans, I thought additional muscle hypertrophy might be causing pressure on the nerve at the piriformis.

Symptoms continued to progress. I started PT, though unfocused with a variety of potential causes being proposed. Finally received an MRI in November 2013, which showed:

- Diffuse disc bulge L4/L5, with moderate bilateral neural foraminal stenosis
- Diffuse disc bulge L5/S1, with severe neural foraminal stenosis on the right and moderate-to-severe stenosis on the left.
- Disc material appearing to contact L5 nerve root.

This was not the news I'd wanted to hear. L5/S1 appears very played out and does not look terribly long for this earth, with L4/L5 not looking all that great either.

I play ice hockey twice a week, enjoy backpacking, hiking, fly-fishing, etc, all of which require being able to stay upright for more than an hour without needing to sit. Apparently sitting in an office chair most of the time followed up with high impact sports has not been the best back-care protocol. I am thankful however I don't have a standing job as I would probably be unable to work without needing narcotics, which I am so far avoiding.

I have met with a number of surgeons who all have various takes on things, but who all seem to agree on DDD for L4/L5/S1. Am weighing my options, of which ADR is definitely one of.

For now, likely will get steroid injections to see if things get temporarily better, but am assuming that a longer term solution will be required once those effects wear off.

Looking forward to reading through the forums and learning from all of you.

Sincerely,
Ian

[Harrison]

Hi Ian,

Welcome, though I am sorry you are here. I hope we can help you. Hey, where do you live?

And when you can, your homework:

http://www.adrsupport.org/forums/f58...-health-11053/

Thanks.

[IanHogan]

Thanks Harrison. I've done my signature homework so hopefully it will show up in this reply.

I am in lovely Fort Collins, Colorado, where I hope to be able to do some snowboarding next week without doing myself any further damage!