[gsxrken]

Although more than 95% of folks with back pain do not need surgery, there is the few that can benefit. But you should give it six weeks or so before you even think about the S word.

I hurt my back lifting and a month later finally got an MRI and it showed a bulging disc pressing on the nerve. No one with a drill was going to go near my back! For literally six months I tried PT, swimming, injections, acupuncture and those electric stim pads to no avail. I was losing reflexes and movement in the left foot. Another MRI showed the disc has torn open and the innards were flattening the sciatic nerve in the foramen channel. No Ab crunches, which were impossible anyway from pain, were going to get that genie back in the bottle. A microdiscectomy removed the leaked out gel and relieved the nerve pressure immediately.

I stay in shape half out of fear of that white-hot nerve pain ever reoccuring.