Hi all,
I am a PT(neuro rehab) in the US. Last summer, I fell while climbing a water fall, coming down hard on my left hip with knee in extension. I had some obvious muscular injury, went through traditional PT, and ended up being "fixed" by a chiropractor friend who found that I had a left side upslip. I did have an Wikipedia reference-linkMRI which was only significant for a "very shallow, broad based disc herniation at L4-5 and a very shallw disc bulge at L-S1. Then in Dec, I was carrying a box of firewood in my left hand(with the arm down by my side) when the top broke, jarring me to the left. Within days, I felt the burning pain of a herniated disc. Started my Mckenzie ex, went to see a Mckenzie trained PT and resolved the burning/radiating pain from the disc and started a core strengthening program. During this time, I felt like my right side of my back extensors was much tighter than the left, but my PT said he thought it was just the sensation of that as he did not find any significant tightness or mobility issues. After D/c from PT, I was able to get my planks up to 1 min holds, but then started having difficult getting my full range prone extension(which had previously not been a problem). I now get pain at L1-2 with full range extension.

I limited spinal flexion ROM from Dec-Mar to get the disc symptoms down on the advice of my PT. Started re-establishing flexion mid-March, but am still having pain at L1-2 with full range extension(so only doing extension pain-free) and have backed off my core exercises to attempt to give the extensors some rest. I have done very limited stretching of back extensors for fear of aggravating the disc again(some heel-sit stretches with legs spread apart and some cat-cobra). I can touch my toes without disc pain, but if I flex more deeply at upper lumbar spine, I get a lot of tightness. I had trigger point injections in paraspinals about 2 weeks ago, which helped, but I feel the right sided "tightness" again. It extends from the bottom of my ribcage to my PSIS. What can I do to get rid of this spasm/tightness and get back to my real life????

Similar Threads: