Does anyone have suggestions on what type of exercise/workout can be done with herniated lumbar discs? I currently have issues with sitting, standing, riding in a car, lifting, bending, twisting, turning. I am appealing my workman’s comp case – the injury happened while I was shipping at work, but they say since I had been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, they do not have to pay (different topic!). Anyway . . . I was told to exercise & lose weight . . . pray tell, how can I do this when any volume of activity sends burning, shooting pain from my hip through my toes (this pain does not stop after I cease activity)? Any real suggestions are welcome!
I’m so sorry for your pain. Please, if you have a pre-existing medical condition (and you do) see a professional physiotherapist or the like, before starting ANY exercise regime, or you could end up doing more harm than good.
I would think that they would suggest hydrotherapy – gentle exercises in a heated pool – for starters as this takes the weight off, but can help increase flexibility.
I don’t know if a gym would be able to give you an exercise plan, given your condition, but it might be worthwhile asking. Just make sure that you let them KNOW what is going on.
#1 by caffsans on August 31st, 2009
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I have six herniated discs=the therapist showed me how to do the back exercises and was told to walk for an hour every day
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#2 by Barb Outhere on August 31st, 2009
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I’m so sorry for your pain. Please, if you have a pre-existing medical condition (and you do) see a professional physiotherapist or the like, before starting ANY exercise regime, or you could end up doing more harm than good.
I would think that they would suggest hydrotherapy – gentle exercises in a heated pool – for starters as this takes the weight off, but can help increase flexibility.
I don’t know if a gym would be able to give you an exercise plan, given your condition, but it might be worthwhile asking. Just make sure that you let them KNOW what is going on.
References :
#3 by hippychic1981 on August 31st, 2009
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The best way to deal with this is through physical therapy and doing exercises under a therapist’s care so that you can make sure you don’t injure yourself further.
If that’s not possible I’d recommend a book called "treat your own back" by Robin McKenzie. It has a bunch of exercises in it that you can do at home, and explains things well (I got mine from my physical therapist). It’s a paperback so it can’t be very expensive.
Also – ANY activity that causes the pain down your leg to increase needs to be stopped right away. The increase in pain means that disc (or discs) is putting more pressure on the sciatic nerve which is – needless to say – bad.
I’m not going to give any straight out advice for exercises because I’m not qualified and I don’t want to explain something wrong – hopefully someone around here can do a better job.
I do know that degenerative disc disease would not cause the level of sciatica you have since DDD means the disc is deteriorating, but not necessarily bulging. continue your fight to get workman’s comp to cover it – because the DDD may have made the disc prone to herniation – but those are two different problems altogether.
Feel better.
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have both herniated disc (L5-S1) & DDD
#4 by Patrick on August 31st, 2009
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Hi I am going to have surgery Tuesday to have 3 discs fused. I had physical therapy 2 days a week, This consists of 1 hour in a warm pool doing exercises. One great thing they did was to put weights on my feet and held me up with floating devices. This pulled my discs out abit. Try water exercise if you can and good luck
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