herniated disc leg pain

[xzavier1982]

i have been diagnosed with a small herniation of my l5 s1 disc and have seen 2 dr.s about it. the first was a GP and then second was a spinal specalist, he was the one that said i have the disc herniation. anyways i have been in pain for about 2 weeks now and have been on prednizon and some muscle relaxers as well as some pain killers. i have just about ran out of pain killers and need to get more. i thought that the pain in my left leg would have gone down or away by now. i radiates from my left buttox all the way down my left leg. it is like a throbbing pain and an aching all the time and the leg will go numb quite often from the hip to the foot sometimes. sometimes just my foot will go numb. i start physical therapy today for the first time ever and i am affraid that i will be in worse pain then when i get there. my question is, is this normal or am i just being a wimp?

[Heathco]

Does anyone else's legs ache? My sciatica isn't that bad but my legs and buttocks just ache some nights. It drives me crazy and usually all I can do to fix it is to have a few codeines.
I take endep 10mg every night, codeine as required and Valium as required when muscle spasm occurs.
I just wonder if the aching my back problem or something else.

[Heathco]

Hey, I have had a minor disc herniation on l5,s1 for 7 years and as discouraging as it can be at times with how you feel pain wise. If you do some light cardio for half hour each day and do some light weights you'll eventually have quite a high tolerance to the pain. As silly as it sounds. what I found is that sometimes I can over do it a little bit and then my back muscles will spasm and potentially i could be out of action for a few days but I take a few valiums and a few codeines, go to bed and the next day I wake up fine. So although it can be a bit of a rollercoaster at times and also very difficult to get motivated when your legs ache all the time or you get sciatica If you make yourself do some exercise you'll see how much being active can help your pain management.
It's actually hard to even practice what I preach but when I was my fittest I was in the least pain. Keep up the good work everyone. It's not easy.

[ferret5]

For the spine doc to diagnose a disc herniation, I assume you had MRI or CT scan. The MRI should have shown if there is compression on the spinal cord or a nerve. What they have you doing now with pain med, muscle relaxants and Physical therapy is always the first step. I had a lot of problems in my butt, hip and leg with my first lumbar herniation.  I didn't find that physical therapy made it worse or hurt too much. When it did hurt, it was like it  "hurt so good". But, they say physical therapy should not hurt, so if it causes you any pain, you just tell them and they'll try something different. They say as the herniation gets older, it dries up and shrinks somewhat and thus less pain. I did not find that to be true. What really helped with me was that the herniation had caused such a bad muscle spasm that wouldn't quit. The neurologist took 1 acupuncture needle and put it into muscle back of thigh and it worked great