I was fortunate in that I was very fit and generally physically capable with access to excellent medical care.

I had a couple of MRIs to see what was going on.

Essentially I’ve got degenerative disc disease.

My specialist was the head of the Spinal Care unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

So I trusted his advice.

He said that surgery could very well make it worse, and that over time it would likely begin to heal itself.

I had a couple of steroid injections and took mild painkillers and anti inflammatories to manage the pain for a year or so.

The initial incident was well over five years ago.

Ive had reviews since, and the advice is still the same.

Surgery is a last resort. Just keep mobile and don’t do anything to make it worse.

The MRIs show that the disc that is jamming into my nerve has slowly begun to reduce.

So I force myself to remain mobile by continuing to walk everywhere, and have a standup desk for work as I literally couldn’t sit down for months!

I pretty much now never lift anything.

Your body cant process pain and motion at the same time. Which is a simplistic explanation. So walking is an excellent path to recovery.

Before the injury I’d back squat 130kilos, and strict press 95, could run a marathon and had a resting heart rate of 42bpm.

It flares up from time to time, and is never truely better.

I’m never pain free, I just learn to ignore the pain and keep moving!

I could talk for hours about my journey LOL

Yeah a friend of mine had this and he had to get surgery to not lose his left leg to permanent numbness due to the disc pressing on the nerves. I know one other person with the exact same issue and solution, and am also under the impression that without surgery only bad things happen.