The Old Ruptured Disc

I thought I'd post about my herniated disc (also called ruptured disc), in case anyone might find it helpful.

In 1991, I was in my second summer of boot camp, training to be an infantry officer, as I wanted to be a peacekeeper. Anyhow, one day I suddenly felt a strong pain in my ankle, and thought I'd sprained it. Yet, this was the days of old school army, when injuries wouldn't stop you from carrying on. I continued the rest of the summer with this sharp pain in my ankle that would come and go incessantly.

Once I was back at university in September after the summer training, I found that the pain in my ankle subsided. I didn't know it at the time, but I had had a bulging disc. The disc had been pinching the sciatic nerve, and the pain traveled to my ankle. But once the inflammation went down, the pinching stopped. Anyhow, I continued with my marathon running, my military training and so on.

A year later, I bent over one day to pick something up and had such a shocking pain that I couldn't move at all. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain, but this was excruciating. And there were staggering shockwaves of pain, like lightning bolts all down my left leg.

I went to a doctor, and he prescribed pain medication and bed rest. I wasn't happy, and wanted active rehab. So, I found a sports med doctor on campus who was superb. He immediately diagnosed a herniated disc, and sent me for a CT Scan. The scan showed that I had a ruptured disc in the L-3, L-4 lumbar.

The doctor shipped me off to physio, which I did for about a year and a half before the pain subsided. I did a lot of time in Cobra, and avoided all running and rowing. I also avoided sitting, and stood in all my university classes, and at the computer. I really missed running, and needed a new activity to keep in shape. So, I took up swimming and went on to become a lifeguard two years later.

Anyhow, once a disc is herniated, it never fully goes back to normal per se. But it can be managed well to the point where you can forget all about it for years. So, you want to avoid the wrong kind of lifting and so on, and make sure it doesn't get inflamed. As well, you keep doing Cobra and other backbends to nudge the disc in. So, for the last 15 years or so, I've managed okay. I don't row, or do flip turns in the pool, and take great care when I carry my kids.

Every few years, though, when I drive a lot, or when we move and I lift more than usual, or pick up the kids in an awkward way, I do annoy that disc. It really shows me who's in charge as it inflames and presses on the nerves and causes muscle spasms and much pain which isn't reduced by medications at all whatsoever. At this point, it can take about 15 minutes to gradually ease out of bed in the morning, get in and out of a car and whatnot. It feels rather ungraceful, in fact.

Well, it's been a few years since I last aggravated that injury, but when my son had the dishwasher fall on him, and I did the first aid, I threw out the disc again. Luckily I didn't get to the point where the sciatic nerve was pinched, but the spasms and stiffness and pain where there big time.

I knew immediately not to wait around and let it get worse, so I got myself to physio immediately. Took some Tylenol, after hating Celebrex, but this just took a little edge of the pain but didn't really numb it at all. Anyhow, at physio they did the electrode therapy and then a couple of weeks later started the traction, and now I'm far more mobile and can go walking and take care of the kids and everything. No Primary Series yet, but slowly doing some backbending and restorative asanas.

I have had to call off my karate and jiu jitsu classes, since there is too much jolting, and I take care not to sit too much. After sleeping on the floor for the last few weeks, I also got a new mattress which is very firm. And, now I'm thinking all the time on how to slowly ease back into my Ashtanga practice without having any setbacks with my disc. I found a little search on ezboard brought up quite a bit of posts from other practitioners, so that's great.

What I've started doing for my practice is warming up by walking rather than doing Surya Namaskara, as the forward bending is the greatest risk to disc injuries. Then I do some back bending and restorative asanas that don't require twisting or forward bending. I like to back bend on a wall too. As the pain subsides, I will add in the Standing Sequence only.

I am not sure about the Seated Sequence with all that forward bending. But I do know that eventually I can get back to it. In the meantime, I look sometimes at Second Series with the backbending, which is superb for disc injuries, and wonder if I should incorporate some of that as my seated postures. I don't like to mess with tradition, though, so I will give that some more thought.

I am just wishing to get back to my practice sooner than later. No matter how meagre it was (still just at Navasana), it still has had such a positive impact on my life. So, when it's gone, I really learn to appreciate it. I will try and not forget this lesson.