L5-S1 Protrusion - My 6 months journey so far
Hi, just wanted to share my journey in case it resonates and anyone has advice. For context, I’m M30, and from the UK. Have been fit, healthy and active most my life, participating in sports and regular gym-goer.
In October 2025 I travelled to Thailand for a month, where I begun to experience mild Sciatica symptoms down my left leg. Going to the toilet and completing simple tasks like putting socks on were becoming difficult.
Never suffered a serious injury before and down to naivety, I pushed it to the back of mind. Fast forward to before Christmas - I felt my lower back “twang” whilst warming up on the hack-squat machine in the gym. I was immediately unable to complete the repetition and had to slither out from under the weight. Unable to do anything else without pain, I hobbled my way back to my car and struggled home.
A few days later, the weekend before Christmas - I had to turn down my annual Christmas bar crawl with my school friends. I was in excruciating pain, unable to; sit, lay, stand, or pretty much do anything without being in debilitating pain from the Sciatica down my left leg.
I had a Skiing holiday booked for the first week of January - in hindsight I should have cancelled - but after a couple weeks of rest from the initial injury I went anyway. I’m not quite sure how I survived the week, waking up in the morning I was barely able to walk downstairs for breakfast - yet alone snowboard for a week! But with a generous dose of ibuprofen and alcohol on a daily basis, I somehow suppressed the pain made it through the week… no doubt this made my condition worse.
Fortunately enough I work a hybrid job, so was working from home for majority of this period. But by February, my partner urged me to go to the GP, my condition was getting worse and could not stand/walk for more than 15 minutes, only finding relief from laying on my bed, and avoiding weight on my left side while sitting.
My first GP appointment in early February was a waste of time and probably set me back further. An appointment was arranged with the in-house physio, who diagnosed me with sciatica, printed off an A4 piece of paper with 6 weeks of stretches and sent me on my way.
I tried the stretches for a week, with the “no pain,
no gain mentality” but this just aggravated symptoms further.
Following lengthy research, I assumed I was suffering from piriformis syndrome, so bought a Tense machine, Deepheat, and a gel heat/cold pack to reduce the pain, which did not help.
Upon further research I found an American spine injury specialist online, and booked an initial consultation. After a lengthy conversation, he was almost certain my diagnosis was a herniated disc, as he diagnosed that straightening and lifting my toes in my right leg was causing sciatic pain down my left leg. He quoted about $5000 for a 6-12 month course, so I decided to continue down the NHS path.
I went back to the GP after a week and had an appointment with a Doctor this time, who prescribed Amitriptyline for the pain, and booked me in for an MRI.
The wait time was roughly 6 weeks for an MRI, during that time the Amitriptyline made me constipated, and sitting on the toilet was unbearable, and made me feel like I had a hangover in the mornings so decided to stop taking them after about a week.
Fast forward to the MRI in March (results attached) I’m diagnosed with a broad-based protrusion across my L5-S1, they recommended me for a surgical opinion.
I had to wait about another 6 weeks for my appointment in May at the Royal Orthopaedic hospital with a spine specialist. I was given 2 options - steroid injections or surgery. I was told the former option has a 50% success rate and you may need multiple treatments, but the protrusion may never go away, so I opted for surgery route. The consultant told me there’s a 10-40 week wait list for surgeons on the NHS.
I found out about 2 weeks ago the referral to the surgeon had only recently been made (about a month after the consultation), so I’m still waiting at this stage.
I decided to start taking Amitriptyline again, as I’m still suffering from severe pain, which has slightly helped reduce pain - down from a 11/10 to about a 7/10.
In the meantime, I have managed to identify a few ways to mitigate the pain:
- Sitting in computer chairs with good posture and feet firmly planted on the ground
- Laying flat on the ground
- Laying on a bed with pillow in between or under my knees
I suffer the most pain in the morning, and need to sit for about half an hour before I’m able to stand without any severe pain.
I’m past the 6 month mark now, with no real progress, unable to walk without a severe limp, can’t stand for more than 20/30 mins.
I’m considering asking for steroid injections whilst I wait for the surgical opinion, but I feel like this might mask my pain symptoms and void my chances of surgery.
Any thoughts / advice / general comments are welcome :)