I didn' t realize that I needed to be 100% accurate and clear. I guess I should have said that most herniated disks will heal themselves without invasive techniques such as surgery.
I posted what I did to clear up what I saw as vey bad information. If you had posted the above quote instead of what you did I probably wouldn' t have even replied. The above quote is a 180 from what you said earlier.
In some cases rest is all that is neccesary and in other cases physical therapy may be prescribed for as little as one visit to verify proper lifting techniques and correct posture are being used.
Sorry Thunder but once again you are wrong. 100% wrong. You seem like the kind of guy that will ask the same question 100 times until you hear the answer you are looking for. You are making the grave mistake of confusing " healing" with an absence of pain.
Take for example your current situation. If you take enough of those pills they gave you and you feel no pain............is your back healed??
If you decide to ignore your disc herniation in the hopes that it will get better all by itself with rest and proper lifting techniques then I wish you the best of luck. If you decide to gobble pain pills like M+M' s to pretend it doesn' t hurt, that is fine too. Neither of these methods will provide you any level of sustainable long term healing which you seek.........in the future you will regret the path you chose. Please don' t encourage others to follow such advice.
If anyone out there hurts their back badly please get to a Dr. ASAP. Do whatever you have to to get through the acute stage of pain and get an MRI. Once you have a solid diagnosis on the severity of your problem you can address it with conservative therapy of your choice. Proper spinal biomechanics MUST be restored in order for any hopes of disc retraction/resorption and that is only in minor cases. If your conservative therapy of choice is not helping you in 3-5 weeks it will not help you at all.......seek other avenues. Epidural injections are OK as a method of temporary pain relief but really have no lasting benefits........plus cortisone is a steroid and by nature is destructive to joints(that is why they spread them out so far and will usually only do a series of 3) If your symptoms persist with no signs of relief and surgery looks like an option in your case I would recommend the endoscopic proceedure if suitable for your injury. It is outpatient surgery now and minimally invasive. Basically it just nipps off the disc material laying on the nerve to relieve pain and irritation. More invasive proceedures are laminectomy and fusions which are permanently altering the normal anatomy and function of the spine. It is really a roll of the dice when you are faced with that option. Your response could be anywhere from 100% better all the way to 100% worse. The success rates for spinal surgery are dismally low.
Most importantly, the proper function of the spine has to be restored in order for you to significantly reduce the chance of degeneration/re-injury to that joint or other joints of the spine in the future. Putting a band aid type fix on the problem will only cause it to return 10 times worse in the same area or manifest itself elsewhere creating a whole new problem to deal with.
Thunder.........you may not see it or you may just not want to hear it but I am really trying to help you and anyone else reading this from making a horrible mistake whose consequences could be life long impairment.
I hope you don' t see this differently then it is intended. I really do wish you and all others the best of luck on this long hard road that you are facing. I can only hope you listen to me today instead of wishing you did some day down the road.
Again
Best of Luck