I just got a memory foam bed. It needs another 24 hours out of the box before I can use it, but I’ll let you know if it helps the aches and pains.
I have one of the lower back brace / girdle things, but my chiro and my doctor both say that using it too often will tend to let my muscles get out of shape, so I only use it when I’m in excruciating pain and have to be ambulatory.
Over the years, I’ve picked up a few exercises from physical therapy and yoga that work for my particular affliction. If I don’t do them religiously, I’m at risk, and every time I’ve stopped doing them for more than about a week, all it takes is someone looking at me wrong and my back will go out again. So I do them. I also do (non-macho) weight training, walking and take regular breaks at work to walk (maybe 1000 feet or so – I work in a building shaped like a cloverleaf, and I walk around the perimeter of one of the leafs).
I took this option at the beginnig of November. I’ve had issues for the past, ooh, seven years or so. They always seemed to clear up except for June last year. I finally got am full on herniation of the disc.
I couldn’t be more glad I had the operation. The unending pain, which also covered my entire left leg apart from the foot where I was losing feeling, has now entirely gone. In three days I was back on my feet. That amazed me. Three days from surgery to being able to walk (not perfectly, but walk) unaided. And no pain.
I now exercise regularly and see a physio twice a week to try and build up the strength in my back so it will never happen again.
This is probably counterintuitive and you should not assume that what works for me would work for you, nor do anything of this nature without consulting a doctor if you see one now for your lower back pain.
I go to the gym and I go to the leg press machine. By design they expect you to put a moderate amount of weight and the flip the levers that let the weight come all the way down towards you when you flex your knees. Instead, I put a whole lot of weight and don’t flip the levers and just move the weight the distance from the levers to fully extended and then hold it out there. Repeat several times. All that weight comes down through my legs and into my pelvis and it does something nice to my spine. No more lower back pain. (Legs and butt feel great too, it’s a nice workout if you’re a hiker or mountain climber and don’t usually get enough exercise to maintain that fit)
Surgery’s track record for helping back pain is sketchy at best. Yes, it often does little for pain and occasionally ends up making pain worse.
I was having neurological complications that required surgical intervention. I no longer have the foot drop or continence difficulties, but my back does still ache. On the whole, it’s an improvement to go from searing pain and occasionally tripping because you can’t control your foot to a steady ache and not tripping or dripping.