Bed BACK and Beyond
Sharing positive stories of recovery after a herniated disc or other spinal cord injury. Join herniated disc champion CK as she has informative and encouraging conversations with other back injury survivors. From people who elected to have back surgery (microdiscectomy, laminectomy, fusion, etc) to those who used more conservative methods, plus all things in between, join our podcast, and let's talk about how life can move beyond the bed after injury. If you are dealing with the isolation and despair that often accompanies a serious back or neck injury, then you'll love being a part of these stories of hope and recovery.
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Bed BACK and Beyond
Microdiscectomy Recovery Story: Making Surgery Look Easy
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Jessa shares her heartfelt journey of battling back pain due to a herniated disc, navigating from chiropractic care to ultimately undergoing successful surgery. Her story highlights the importance of seeking proper diagnosis, advocating for oneself, and finding community support in the journey towards recovery.
• Jessa’s history of back issues beginning in her 20s
• The challenges of receiving proper diagnosis and treatment
• Insight into chiropractic care versus medical intervention
• Emotional impact of living with ongoing pain
• Decision-making process leading to herniated disc surgery
• Recovery experience and the significance of post-surgical support
• Returning to physical activities while maintaining caution
• Jessa’s message of hope and encouragement for others facing similar struggles
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Have a positive story of recovery to tell? Head over to https://bedbackbeyond.com/share-your-story/ to apply.
Back Injury Recovery Stories and Tips
Speaker 1We'll admit you and we'll try and get you in for surgery on Monday, because he looked at my MRI and he said you don't need pain meds, you need this herniation out. It was the size of a golf ball, so it was. It was so big.
Speaker 2Welcome to Bed Back and Beyond, sharing positive stories of recovery from serious back or neck injury. Your host is CK, a fellow champion who draws on her own experience with herniated disc surgery. Join her as she talks with others who have overcome the physical and emotional trauma of a painful injury and discover for yourself how you can find hope and encouragement in recovery.
Speaker 3Hi Jessa. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Bed, back and Beyond. Before we dive into your injury, how about you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 1Well, I just turned the big four zero last week. Oh, happy birthday. Oh, thank you, I've got two little girls. We live in Florida. I mean, regarding my back, I've always had back issues. When I was 20, I was moving something really heavy of my mom's for her, so I was like doing like a bend over, move and a pull and I felt it pop. So it was always in the same spot on my right side but it would always flare up and then the chiropractor would usually always help me through that. So that's like my back history, especially when I was pregnant it really would flare up. So I would go like weekly. So I guess I've always had back issues.
Speaker 3When your back would pop, was it, uh, like you would throw your back out for a couple weeks?
Speaker 1no, like I. Just that was like the initial injury, I think I I felt it just something happened in there, uh, okay, and then, whenever, whenever it would flare up, um, it was just pain, pain in that area. Nothing, nothing horrible, but definitely uncomfortable.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think I had. I had a history of just throwing my back out for years and my parents would throw their back out and usually that was just. You know, the muscles get real painful and weak and it would usually take about three weeks for it to go away. But I never had any kind of sciatica symptoms or anything prior to my experience.
Speaker 1No, neither did I, neither did I. Okay, and that's interesting, you say that like your parents did, cause my mom also. My mom has had back surgery, so genetic component to that weak, weak spot in the body.
Speaker 3Now were you an active person.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I grew up playing basketball and volleyball. Uh, I, I have very loose ligaments. Um, I had shoulder surgery in high school and had to stop playing. My ligaments are very like Gumby, so I would always dislocate my shoulder, okay, and um, I mean I'm double jointed and a lot of my joints, and so I always wondered if that had something to do with it.
Speaker 3Um, do you have that syndrome, the uh no, I don't think so.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, I think it's just.
Speaker 3I know what you're talking about?
Speaker 2Yeah, no, but yeah, no, I've always been active.
Speaker 1I'm always at the gym. This past, like the past time where it really affected me and where I ended up needing surgery, I was playing tennis, so the the tennis twisting movement really, really got me.
Speaker 3Okay, did I see that you were on vacation when you got first hit with the major?
Speaker 1herniation pain. No, I, just no. I was playing tennis in the spring and it had progressively gotten worse, so I started going to the chiropractor during that springtime.
Speaker 3And that was spring of 2023, right, yep, yep.
Speaker 1Okay, yeah, cause, yes, yep.
Speaker 3I got a little tick-tock stalking this morning to kind of refresh it.
Speaker 1I know, with the brand new year kind of screws you Um, but I had noticed my back always feeling like the typical hurt. And this one day at tennis I was just like I cannot. I literally had to stop playing because the pain and the pressure was so bad and I always felt it was always a feeling like I need to bend over, uh, to relieve pressure. That was always my feeling. So then, after I had to stop playing tennis, I was going to the chiropractor twice a week and in retrospect I think what had happened was I had always had bulging discs and they were able to help, and I think this time I actually had a herniation. And I think that's what actually had a herniation and I think that's what made it worse is going to the chiropractor once I had the herniation.
Speaker 3Okay, did your chiropractor do any x-rays?
Speaker 1No. So I I actually now I'm like totally advise people to just be so careful about it, because there was no imaging done, so no, Okay, all right.
Speaker 3So you tried the chiropractor and did you get some relief or just no relief at all?
Speaker 1No, I actually, like, was screaming in the office when he did. I don't know, have you been to a chiropractor? Did you go down that route?
Speaker 3I don't know, have you been to a chiropractor? Did you go down that route? So with my story, I had severe pain in my glute Every time I stood up.
Speaker 3It would just stab in my left butt cheek and it was really bad. One day I would stand up and I would have to hold my breath for a couple seconds, but then it would pass. So I was driving home from work and I thought I should just see a chiropractor. So I pulled up to one office. It would pass. So I was driving home from work and I thought I should just see a chiropractor. So I pulled up to one office. It was closed. So then I drove to a second office. They didn't have any appointments available and then I thought, okay, one more. If I see one more office I'll pull in there. But it was on the opposite side of the highway, so I didn't go. So I got home and then the next morning I rolled over and had my severe herniated experience. And so my thinking was I think the Lord just protected me from a chiropractor.
Speaker 1Good for you, because you probably would have been in so much more pain. My goodness, yes, you were saved.
Speaker 3So then, what was your next step after the chiropractor didn't help.
Speaker 1Well, I was going twice a week and I probably went for four to six weeks and I mean, I'm usually pretty in tune with my body but since it had always helped in the past, I don't think I was realizing that it was getting worse, probably because of it. I don't even remember, but I know when it was the worst day, it was when I was going to bed and I noticed I couldn't even lay down. I couldn't lay down or sleep. It was so bad. Long story short, once I finally got imaging way too long later it was. That was May, june, july, august, september.
Speaker 1So four months later I finally got an MRI. Wow, and I had a huge herniation just sitting on my nerve at the. At the beginning I didn't realize what it was because, like you, I had a huge, like a massive pain in my butt and I was getting those massage guns and just trying to massage it out. It's like the pain radiates so much into so many areas and like the hip area that I didn't know where it was, like stemming from Is that how you felt.
Speaker 3Yeah, I was convinced I had first had that piriformis muscle. Yeah, yeah. So I was doing stretches for that to try and make it go away, and I was convinced myself like no, it's not a herniation, until I rolled over in the morning and had to call an ambulance.
Speaker 1Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah. So what did you do to injure yourself?
Speaker 3Do you even know? Yep, I was walking my two beagles and I was bending over. I was bending over to pick up after one of them and I think they saw a rabbit or a squirrel and they took off behind me While you're bending over.
Speaker 3Yeah, so they yanked me backwards and so I had initially just pain in my right glute and then that moved, that moved up into my lower back and then I had that through my back out feeling, but it never got better. And then the pain slowly slipped, shifted to my left glute. So that was April. Yeah, so it was April that they pulled me backwards, and then it wasn't until June that I woke up and needed an ambulance for that. The big herniation, wow.
Speaker 1Wow, so did you have it herniated on both sides?
Speaker 3No, just the left. L5 S1. Yeah, so I don't know why it started in the right and the moved.
Speaker 1That is interesting. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly where mine was.
Speaker 3L5 S1. Yeah, yeah, it's very common.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, it was so bad. I honestly didn't know I had actually dealt with arthritis. Earlier in my life. When I had my second baby, I got this random. They diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis and I ended up healing myself. I never went on the medication, but I went the natural route and I mean I don't suffer with it anymore, thank God. It was pretty bad. But in my brain I'm like is this coming back and attacking my back? Because I mean I would wake up crippled. And so I'm like in my brain it felt like that, like something was attacking my back and so I thought that I had arthritis and I really didn't think it was a herniated disc.
Speaker 2I really didn't, because I didn't really have an injury.
Speaker 1I just had like pain and then all of a sudden it got worse, out of nowhere.
Speaker 3So once you got your MRI, did they send you to physical therapy or did they tell you no, you need surgery.
Speaker 1No, actually. So for before, before I got my MRI, like the first doctor that I saw about, it was an orthopedist and he recommended an x-ray and PT. That was the first line of treatment. So I got an x-ray. It showed scoliosis, which is wild, because I don't have scoliosis now. I just had a severe like. My herniation was so big that it was bowing my back. Wow, I went to PT twice and I was like, nope, this is not working, not going to help. And I was like, nope, this is not working, not going to help. And like I'm very active and I'm doing a lot of videos at home on how to strengthen and like heal a herniated disc. And I, you know it was. It's silly the deterrent why I didn't get an MRI was of the cost. I was scared that it was going to be thousands and thousands of dollars, yeah, and it wasn't. It was scared that it was going to be thousands and thousands of dollars yeah, and it wasn't, it was not. Um, I think it ended up being like $400. So had I known that, I would have probably done it a lot earlier.
Speaker 1I just lived through the entire summer just in horrific pain and then finally, uh, in September, I decided that I couldn't live with it anymore. I was getting up in the morning trying to get my kids ready for school and I was sleeping upstairs at that point because the pain was so bad. I kept moving at night. I think I had gotten two hours of sleep the night before. I was laying horizontal on the floor doing my daughter's hair, like I couldn't stand up and I was getting jealous of this 80-year-old woman who would walk every morning in my neighborhood and I'm like I don't know what's wrong with me. Like I couldn't stand up. The pain was so bad. So I just told my husband I'm going to the emergency room and of course they just pushed pain meds.
Speaker 1So I tried every pain med under the sun and then that's when I finally, through God's grace, found this neurosurgeon. I was looking through my insurance, who was covered, and typically the appointments are like so far out, right. Well, uh, that was Wednesday. I called and I mean I was in dire straits at that point. I should have called way, way, way long before that. But, um, I ended up seeing him on on that on that Friday. So I just knew there was somebody who's watching out over me you know, god was and so I ended up seeing him on Friday.
Speaker 1I was in so much pain I called the office that next morning Just it was Saturday morning, and nobody was at the office but there was a doctor on call and so he said for intractable pain, you can be admitted. If you can handle it, wait till Sunday, we'll admit you and we'll try and get you in for surgery on Monday. Cause he looked at my MRI and he said you don't need pain meds, you need this herniation out. It was the size of a golf ball, so it was. It was so big, so, um, he's like you don't need pain meds, you just need help, you need us to take it out. So anyways, I ended up having surgery that next Tuesday.
Speaker 3What kind of symptoms did you have as far as sciatica goes it?
Speaker 1had started up in my glute area like you had experienced, but then after a few weeks it traveled down like the side of my leg. Then, after a few weeks, it traveled down like the side of my leg and I felt like the top of my ankle and my whole ankle. It felt like it was being eaten alive, Literally from the inside. What?
Speaker 3it felt like. So you had originally seen an orthopedist, and then you ended up with the neurosurgeon.
Speaker 1Yeah, so sorry, I kind of skipped around. So yeah, when I saw the orthopedist that it was the x-ray, the pt, I was at the beginning of the summer or actually late spring, and then I ended up seeing him again to try some steroid shots. Okay, and that was in sept, september, and the steroid shots, like reacted very poorly for me, it almost set me off.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1Made your pain worse. Yes, and that is what started this spiral of it being like unlivable Right.
Speaker 3Okay, you're the second or a third person I've talked to where the steroid shot made the pain so much more worse, yeah, yeah, because you're putting something into a space that's already compressed and now you're adding more material in there.
Speaker 1So I'm assuming- yeah, oh no, it was so bad and actually I never I had gotten the MRI done before. He did that because you have to have the imaging. He never showed me the MRI and like a dummy I didn't ask to see it because he was just so he was like one of those doctors in and out, in and out people, patients. And so I called back after I got the steroid shot and I got one of his texts and this was the first shot and I got one of his texts and this was the first inkling that I had to how big it was. I had two of his texts on two separate days. Pull up my stuff, my file, and he's like uh, ma'am, I've never seen a herniation this large. Two of them at his clinic said that.
Speaker 1And so then I got angry and I was like are you, are you serious? He, he had me in there for surrogate shots. He didn't say how large it was, he didn't say what a big. I mean, he didn't communicate to me how, how big it was. Um, and that probably should go get surgery. So anyways, after that I didn't trust him at all anymore and so I was just like you know what I need to see a surgeon. Hell if I'm going to an orthopedist for back surgery, so I just on my own. We have a PPO, so I just started searching neurosurgeon.
Speaker 3There was a young guy at my church who had gotten surgery two years before my experience, and so I just said who did you see? And he gave me his, his, the practice name recommendation. Yeah, but his doctor was booked out, and so I just said who has the soonest appointment? And that's how I picked my doctor, which is smart, but when you're in pain, Right, I know, I was like that too.
Speaker 1I'm kind of a hypochondriac medically and the fact that I just was like yep, I'll see you. Yep, that's fine, I don't even care anymore, it was that bad.
Speaker 3I did one cortisone injection too, and I didn't have a severe reaction to it. But within two weeks I knew it wasn't going to help and I didn't want to chase down. It was supposed to be a series of three and I to me it just felt like wasting my time. I didn't want to wait three and then say get surgery. So I was like I'm just, I'm going surgery.
Speaker 1Oh, good for you.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And you said that your recovery wasn't so good.
Speaker 3My recovery wasn't too easy, I think, because you know I went from April to June and then I tried some physical therapy. That didn't help, but my back muscles just got so weak and I'm not one of the lucky people who woke up pain free, so I woke up with still having leg pain. You did Because technically my nerve is still pinched even after the surgery. But so it took me like six months to feel better physically and then probably a year to feel better emotionally.
Speaker 1Oh geez.
Speaker 3So you're still having pain now. Every once in a while it flares, but my day-to-day life is pain-free. My numbness never went away, so my left leg is still numb, so it only bothers me when I'm shaving, yeah, yeah, when I'm shaving my toe.
Speaker 1My pinky toe is numb and like the bottom of my foot, where that is yeah, but it's nothing, nothing yeah, so.
Speaker 3So how, when you went in for surgery was, was it just in and out same day, or did you have to stay in the night?
Speaker 1no, I. I went in, for I got uh admitted on that sunday for intractable pain. Uh, they had me on morphine which didn't even touch it. They were going to try and get me to have surgery Monday, and so I was NPO while I was there and there was just not room in the schedule so I just had to lay there and wait. So I think the next morning it was Tuesday morning they were able to squeeze me in.
Speaker 3Okay, so you stayed the night Monday to Tuesday.
Speaker 1Stayed the night Monday yeah, so well, I stayed the night technically Sunday. I went in super late on Sunday. Sunday night, monday night, tuesday night I think I'm Wednesday night, so Okay, so you stayed one more night after your procedure.
Speaker 3Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's. It's terrible trying to sleep in the hospital, isn't it?
Speaker 1Well, I mean nothing, nothing. I slept perfectly after the surgery because before I wasn't. I, it wouldn't. It was so bad. After that steroid shot, um, I was getting like two to three hours of sleep at night. Wow, yeah, it's just awful.
Speaker 3So you woke up, pain-free.
Speaker 1Pain-free. I, literally I remember being in the recovery. It wasn't even my room, it was like where they wake you up from surgery and I opened my eyes and I remember thinking, oh my God, it's gone.
Speaker 3It's gone, that's great. Yeah, and how was your incision pain? Yeah.
Speaker 1Oh, nothing. I mean after that, literally nothing. I mean it was super uncomfortable and I was scared to move during the recovery, but nothing was as bad as what I was going through, you know. So, right, but I mean it's about, I don't know, two and a half to three inches right, yeah, pretty, pretty standard.
Speaker 3It sounds like so were you, given the you know bending lifting and twisting rules for so many weeks.
Post-Surgery Recovery and Lifestyle Adjustments
Speaker 1Yep yep, yep, yeah. So I had those. Grabbers from Amazon were great. That was fun. I actually sat. I have a hard time sitting. I am like always on the go, so being forced to recover was actually kind of nice. So, yeah, I did a good job. My mom came and helped and my husband helped and it wasn't bad. And then I actually went on a cruise six weeks after surgery. Wow, did you have to fly there four? It might have been four, four to six weeks?
Speaker 3yeah, wow, did you have to fly to the cruise, or was it no florida, okay?
Speaker 1yeah, it was. We drove two hours but my surgeon said he's like, as long as you're taking it easy, he's like obviously you can't get in the water, um, or do you know? Water or anything active, as long as you're just sitting and relaxing, you're fine to go. It was my husband's birthday so yeah, I know I didn't want to ruin it for him, but it was fine, that's great.
Speaker 3Yeah, uh, were you working at the time or were you a stay-at-home mom?
Speaker 1Yeah, I was a stay-at-home mom, so thank goodness. Uh, I got to just let my husband help, just let my husband help, yeah, yeah and he works from home too, so it was a lot nicer and, like I said, my mom came.
Speaker 1So there was a couple of girls that reached out to me on TikTok that, oh no, it wasn't on TikTok, I guess this was. We had surgery at the same time and I met them on Facebook, like in different groups, you know. Yeah, and she was a single mom. She had literally divorced her husband the month prior.
Speaker 1And so she was like so scared about, you know, having to lift up little babies because her kids were super young. I'm sure that would be super scary. Because I did not want to. I had PTSD afterwards for quite some time because of the pain that I endured for so long, so I did not want to do anything to re-endure myself.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's what I mean when I said it took me a year to recover emotionally because of the PTSD afterwards, any little shock or pinch or anything would send me into a panic little.
Speaker 1Any little shock or pinch or anything would send me into a panic. Yeah, oh, I know Well and that's interesting that you still have to deal with like flare ups. I haven't had a flare up, but um, well, it's been. I had surgery so last September it was a year, so a little bit over a year and when I was recovering the muscles right around would get fatigued. You know that feeling where you're just like I need to sit down. That was the worst thing that I ever had to deal with. But, like last month, I felt that again and so I was like, oh my gosh, get the ice, go, sit down. You know, I don't know if I had, I don't know what I did, but it scared me. But then, you know, I slept and woke up and I was fine.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, so usually if I have a flare up, it's gone by the next day. I just had one. Yeah, I just had one like three nights ago. I got home. I got home from work and by the time I got home from work I was like hon, my back feels like it's Before the herniation, when my back would go out. I always had indicators that your back is going to be going out, like just little tiny spasms. So I started to feel those the other night and I was like, oh no, so I just took it easy and I have a really good heating pad, so I heated my muscles and then the next day I'm fine.
Speaker 1So, yeah, yeah, oh, I know I had, so I had reached out to two of. I reached out to everybody that I knew that had gone through this, because you know you feel alone, right, you feel like nobody understands. I was, yeah, like under 40 at the time, you know, and so I'm like feeling sorry for myself that you know I'm going to have like issues my whole life. So it turns out that my really good friend in college and a good friend in high school both had the same surgery. So I called them and connected with them and one of them, she had a microdiscectomy and then she ended up having a fusion.
Speaker 1The second, like a second time around, and so she made me feel better because I'm like, okay, well, you know she's okay and you know, like my doctor said, trying to get me over this PTSD, he's like Jessa, you know what it feels like if you're hurt, you know who to go see and you know what I can help you get over, like it's going to be okay, like you don't have to live like that anymore. Yeah, you know what to do. So I'm still very, very cautious when I work out, especially like when I'm doing abs. Make sure to always do them properly. Yeah, but you know what was the stat that your doctor gave you on reherniation?
Speaker 3Around 15% reherniate yeah.
Speaker 1Which isn't terribly high, but still, you know, right Scary I mean. I just I worry about. Well, my x-ray showed disc loss or disc height loss Okay, in the initial, and I know that's probably hereditary. And so you know your bones are like squishing closer together, but I just think he removed so much of my disc that there's like not much else to like cushion, Right. So you know, I am fearful for my future that I'm going to have like this isn't going to be like the end of it, Right.
Speaker 2So I don't know.
Speaker 1I mean I'm taking collagen and doing. I eat really healthy. I'm a dietician, so it's like I try and do everything I can but it's like not the greatest feeling, knowing that you know I might have to go through it again.
Speaker 3Right, right, hopefully, not, hopefully, not, yeah. And now there's these like a barricade, I think it's. They have disc replacements, right.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3I haven't talked to anyone yet who's had a disc replacement. I'd love to. So instead of getting fusions Right, yeah, do they prescribe you physical therapy afterwards? Or did they just say, nope, go live life. Okay, did you? They did, and I really think the physical therapist was a huge help for me emotionally Getting me to yeah, because once they say, okay, you can start twisting again, I wasn't twisting, I was still walking real stiff, just turning my whole body. So the physical therapy helped me get past the fear of moving again.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I see that I was very surprised. I was expecting him too. Yeah, yeah, I was very surprised, I was expecting him to uh, but really different doctor to doctor really does.
Speaker 1And like I, I don't know, because he's on an orthopedist but I was like, are you sure? And he's like, no, and he had me walking week one. Yeah, he's like, well, as much as you want, um, walk as fast as you want. Like, obviously don't go so fast, you're going to fall. But so I was doing speed walking for exercise and then I was expecting him to kind of send me to PT and he's like you know what to do? Yeah, okay, kind of send me to PT, and he's like you know what to do? Yeah, okay. So I just I started. What I started to do is January, so September, october, november, december, january, so like three months later, because it was like right at the end of September, three months later, I started bar classes okay, which I used to do before in my life, and so I knew it was very low impact and I knew I wasn't going to hurt myself, but it's still super strengthening for the legs and glutes and I still do that. I still do bark classes.
Speaker 3Okay, and have you gone back to playing tennis?
Speaker 1No. So my doctor, he uh was famous in LA. He did like a bunch of uh professional athletes, uh surgery for them, and so he was used to getting people back to where they were, like playing sports. So he's like you'll play tennis again. Like I only picked it up because we moved to Florida and it was fun. Um, it's not like I grew up playing uh, very amateur, and so I was like uh-uh, nope, I am not doing that, I am not doing that like, like, I'm not risking it.
Speaker 3I'm fine, I'm fine. But now you said over a year. Now right, it was a year in September. Yes, it was a year in September. So you would say pain-free, living my normal life, pain-free.
Speaker 1Yes, I'm cognizant of what I do because I don't want to get hurt again. But I'm not doing like like I'm having my husband do the heavy lifting kind of thing. But it's probably smarter anyway, you know.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Normal life. I have people having to say to me, christine, don't do that, like, I'll pick it up. I'm like, okay, I'm not a baby, but all right, thanks for looking up. I'm like, okay, I'm not a baby, but all right, thanks for looking out.
Speaker 1I know it is hard and actually I felt the the biggest part of my body that I felt like deteriorated. I definitely had a lot of muscle wasting because you know there was like almost six months there where I wasn't working out like I used to and then I had lost so much weight during like that end part and then surgery. But like my right calf, my whole right side definitely lost a ton of muscle. My left calf or, excuse me, my calf still doesn't feel like it's connected. It's. It's the weirdest thing. Like I try and clench my calf muscle and it's it's like nope.
Speaker 3No, no, no, I don't, I don't experience that I can clench, fine, I just have the whole numbness still. Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1I don't know I there was definitely a lot of nerve damage down in this lower part of my leg, so my calves are different sizes. Uh, okay, I have heard of that, yes yeah, um, but my lower abs, I think, took the brunt of the injury, like, with regards to, that was the last thing to come back. So I feel like just now I'm finally getting them stronger.
Speaker 1Okay, yeah, but like before, I was very, very cautious, didn't really want to do any like lower ab exercises, because usually it's like it puts pressure on your lower back when you do it. So what do you do?
Speaker 3I do weight, some weightlifting, and I did have to. If I'm doing flat on my back chest presses, that hurts my lower back and so I don't do those anymore. I do incline lifts and things like that. Oh okay, yeah, Well, that's great. So it sounds like if you know someone who needs a microdiscectomy, you would say don't be scared to get the surgery.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think, just like anything in life, you have to weigh, you know, your pain versus the scariness of the surgery and at some point like it's going to tip, you know. So if you can't live with it anymore, definitely have the surgery. I was terrified to have back surgery because you know if the surgeon screws up, like there's not much room for error, and I didn't want to be paralyzed based on somebody else's mistake. You know so it is. It's very scary to trust somebody in that region, but at some point it's like my life wasn't livable, so like it was a risk I had to take.
Speaker 1So Right, that's how I felt, and even with looking back and knowing that my recovery was a little bit hard and I would go through it again to get out of that pain. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I know the nerve pain is no joke. It's wild. I mean I had natural childbirth and I I don't know it's. It's different because it's like so acute and hard, but I mean the nerve pain is, it's indescribable.
Speaker 3Yep Agree. Well, Jessa, I'm so happy to hear that you're doing well and that surgery was a success for you. I really appreciate you being willing to come on and share your journey with us on Bed Back and Beyond. If you are a listener and you have a positive story of recovery from a herniated disc, head over to bedbackBeyondcom and click. Share your story. I would love to include your voice on the show. Jessa, it was so nice meeting you, Thank you.