Getting My Back Right
A disc in my lower back is bulging and pinching a nerve. It's not catastrophic — but it's real, and it's on me to fix it.
What's actually going on
At the very bottom of my spine — the joint between L5 and S1 — the cushion (the disc) between two vertebrae has bulged outward. The ligaments around it have also thickened.
The result: the tunnel my spinal cord runs through is a bit narrower than it should be, and the bulge is gently pressing on the nerve that runs down my left leg.
The disc itself is a little dried out, and the natural curve in my lower back has flattened — both signs that this area has been under stress for a while.
How serious is it?
Mild to ModerateHonestly? It's not an emergency. Plenty of people walk around with exactly this and never know. But it's also not nothing — left alone, it tends to get worse, not better.
The good news: at this stage, it's the kind of thing that responds well to consistent rehab — strengthening the core, fixing posture, losing pressure on the spine. No surgery needed if I do the work.
Nobody else lives in this body. Your partner can't feel it, your parents can't fix it — only you can show up every day and do the work. Do it because you want to feel like yourself again. That's reason enough.