You mention some yoga moves in the OP. I do some as well but certain yoga positions will aggravate a bad back because they place you in a vulnerable position which is also at the end of your range of motion so that is something to watch for. In some people back stretches are counterproductive since it allows them to get in dangerous positions they wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. That was the case for me. I hurt my back twice; once bending to pick up a shovel and the other warming up for deadlifts when I went to put the bar down at the end of a light set. I know now I had weak core muscles and tight hip flexors on one side (another good reason to avoid sit-ups).
If I could find a yoga class that worked with my schedule, I’d take it…especially if run by someone knowledgeable about physical limitations! The yoga exercises I do are very gentle and basic, downward dog, cat, bridge.
I never figured out when I hurt my back, but when the episodes got bad and frequent enough I had the MRI done - that was 11 years ago so who knows what a current one would show.
I can possibly credit exercise for keeping bad episodes at bay…but I’d also like not to have constant discomfort (it’s not bad enough to qualify as pain, really) in my lower back and left butt-cheek. Also I don’t want it to get worse with age and I really would like never to have surgery.
I would have a bad episode every year or so. Finally, my family doctor asked, very diffidently, if I would be willing to try a chiropracter. He added that he had found one he liked and felt it did a lot for him. As it happened my wife’s stepfather was a chiropracter and gave me a treatment whenever we visited (his office was in his home). But he said he didn’t know how to choose a chiro and that most of them were quacks. So I was at least somewhat receptive to the idea.
Anyway, I went to see the guy my doctor recommended. I have been getting a treatment from him every six weeks for the last nineteen years. I had only one back episode in all that time. His receptionist mentioned once to me that he has looked all over town for a chiro for himself and that he has not found one he would trust and that most of them are quacks! This echo of my step-FIL really impressed me.
Now, in addition to the treatments he gave me a series of exercises to do every morning. I do them, at least when I am home. They are all stretching exercises, nothing like pushups or situps (in fact, he considers situps dangerous, same with toe-touches). I wonder whether just doing the exercises alone would do the job. But I can afford the treatment every six weeks and I am unwilling to experiment, since I cannot do a controlled trial on myself and what if I’m wrong.
One other thing I should mention is that he makes no claim that this treatments can cure cancer of fix your heart or anything else. He will recommend exercises if you have, say, a sore shoulder, but that’s just from his general knowledge of your neuro-muscular system; he has no treatment for these things.
Unfortunately, I have no advice on how to find a guy like this, but it has worked for me.
I had a massive extrusion of my L5-S1 disk that I was urged to treat conservatively with shots and physical therapy for 6 months before I gave up and had surgery. The surgery was quite successful at relieving my severe leg and foot pain and less so at improving paralysis in the lower leg and foot. The surgeon said nobody should have encouraged me to try the conservative measures, as he could probably have fixed the paralysis if he’d had me soon enough. So, now I have a mild drop foot, with a weak ankle that rolls forward off stairs on the way down if I am not careful, and lets my toe catch the next step on the way up. I can’t wiggle my toes, and they have taken on an odd curled-over shape. I have pain and an odd, not quite dead numbness in both legs, but more so on the bad side. I limp a little when I’m tired and get pretty bad muscle cramps on the bad side.
At least in my case, there was an argument for doing surgery sooner rather than later, and if I had a similar experience over again I’d ask for the knife.
They say, or said 6 years ago when I was going through this, that lower back surgery is about 85% successful at improving problems in the legs that result from the nerve being crushed, but only about 50% successful at improving pain you feel in the back itself.
Also, I second HongKongFooey’s recommendation to get the McGill books, or at least Low Back Disorders.
Finally, it can be important to have physical therapy to retrain you in how to move so that you don’t damage things further. Three things I learned stick with me: 1) move as though the lower back is caged and rigid from the pelvis to the bottom of the ribcage; 2) get out of bed in the morning by staying straight, and sliding or pivoting off the edge of the matress while balanced on one hip; 3) don’t EVER try a sit-up.
