It's not my hamstring - I have a herniated disc
After several months of stretching and doing PT for what I thought were very painful hamstring spasms or maybe a really tight psoas muscle, I got an MRI done of my back and left hip. The report says I have a large lateral herniation at L5-S1.
I just went back and read a thread about bulging discs from a couple months ago. Somehow, it really blows me away that I have what the doctor said is "a large herniated disc" when the only problems I have are with standing or walking for a few minutes. Granted, the pain is definitely what I'd call EXCRUCIATING, but I'm not debilitated with other activities or movements like so many others described in their posts.
The doctor said it's likely I'll need to have surgery at some point, but if I want to try something more conservative first that would be fine. I've made an appointment with a McKenzie certified physical therapist (there's only one in town) and if that doesn't help I might try an injection. If I need surgery I think I'll be o.k. with that, but conservative is better whenever reasonably possible in my book. The doc did say one thing that kind of bugged me. After he mentioned surgery, I asked if therapy to try to push everything back into alignment was a possibility and he said, "no, that doesn't work." I'm not sure if he meant "period" or just in my case - ? but I went on to ask him if he was familiar with McKenzie method. He said he'd heard of it but didn't know how it was done and didn't know who in town would - so I told him about the PT I'd heard of and he wrote me an order to set it up.
First available opening isn't until Monday after Christmas. I'll be counting the days . . .