Hello? Anyone here?

Ls won ~

I am sorry to tell you that you will not find much help here because there are not to many members who post here. You say you have bulging discs above and below your laninectomy and I am surprised you were not told to do any kind of physical activity which would cause pounding of the spine such as running, jogging and quick movements? These things are not good for a spine like yours. Lifting weights (properly of course) and walking are things you should be able to do. You need to be careful because you are only 4 months from surgery and your body needs time to heal. What has your doctor told you about this? Have you gone to physical therapy to learn what you can and cannot do? They can teach you how to do thing properly from everyday things to lifting weights. You need to listen to your body and your body will tell you what you can and cannot do. Don't rush things and yes, it can take up to a year.

If you are looking for a support forum where there are active members please let me know and I will hook you up with some. I am sorry there aren't more here to respond to your post. :(

imshirl :)

Like you ive had my back repaired a coule of times and have "bulges" too :( . You need patience patience and more patience. It took me two years to function properly. What about swimming? It worked for me. Such a pain swimming backstroke. However, it works. Some days I couldn't move, managed to get in the pool and it made me so much better. Now I swim for an hour each day and have graduated to front crawl (although you do have to swim quite low in the water to keep your body level). I keep going back to the gym but anything other than swimming seems to set it off again. This isn't much help but you seemed disappointed nobody replied!!!! Good luck. Have you looked at the forum in ivillage.Com - I found lots and lots of support there.

I am a 49 year old male. I lifted weights as my primary exercize for 20 years from age 25 to 45. I had to have back surgey at age 46, but not from the weight lifting - I had a defect in my lower spine from birth. In any event, I had a lumbar fusion at the bottom verterbra with titanium rods in an "h" pattern screwed into my sacrum and bottom verterbra. It took one year to recover from the surgery, then a few months of physical therapy to stretch out my back muscles.
I am now back at the gym doing weight lifting that does not transfer the weight to my lower back, such as bench presses with my feet on the bench, lat pull downs, etc. I find I am able to lift weights without back pain. I do find though that I cannot walk on a treadmill or stairmaster because the pounding starts to hurt my back. So I switched to swimming laps. I find swimming laps to be a little bit boring. However, I get into a routine and try to do a half mile at each session, with brief rests every 10 or 15 laps. This aerobic exercise in addition to the weight lifting has been great for me. The pool is great because it is heated and not crowded, so I can swim in relative peace and quiet without the distraction of others splashing or waiting for a lane.

I think the most important point to remember is to avoid doing anything that puts extra weight or stress or repetitive pounding on the surgical site. There are excellent professional trainers who have experience working with folks recovering from back surgery. If there is not one at your health club or gym, call around and get a one time appointment/consultation with someone with this experience. That's what I did. Good luck, and stay healthy.

I guess the main question is how old are you. The older you get, the longer it takes to heal. I was also active in sports, mainly running. I am in my mid 40's and had back surgery 3 month ago for a sever herinated disk at the l4-l5 level. I am still having more trouble than I would like. Some mornings it is hard to get out of bed. I do not expect to ever go back to running, not just because of my back. Also have bad knees and hip. It is no fun getting old. If I could get to a good walking pace I will be happy.

With that said, a friend of mind who played hs football, injured his back went he was 18. Had surgery and was back playing football in no time. The young heal quickly. He went on to play college football had had no more trouble until 5 years ago. He too is in his mid 40s. He had to have back surgery again and had lots of hardware placed in his back. He tells me he does good as long as he keeps doing his exercizes.

The main thing is don't go crazy and do anything that will re-injure you back too soon. Keep in mind your age and physical condition.

Hope all goes well with you.

***UPDATE***

I got back to many things about 8 months ago. I was running, rollerblading and even went skiing without problems. I started lifting again and got a new personal best bench pressing 135lbs 32 times in a row and doing 240 for the max 1rm. This is at 6' 200lbs. I even played full court basketball at a competetive level, sometimes up to 5 games in a day. However, the last month has been all downhill. I tried to ride a bike and it flared something up, I continued to lift as I wanted to bench 250lbs on my birthday which is this 14th and on the 4th I went to a pool party and was throwing little kids in the air and something must have happend. The next day I had shooting pain going down my buttock with severe soreness in the center of my back. I also have pain on both sides of the lower back as well. Im very concerned I may have another herniated disc. I am taking anti inflammatorys and resting. Next week I may get an MRI done. Im hoping its just irratation like Ive had in the past and not a herniated disc. I just want to get back to where I was last month. The timing is horrible as well since Im getting married on aug. 12th with a Cancun honeymoon to follow. It sucks that I was doing so well and now Im back to square one. Im going to be 27 and it seems as though the ups and downs are going to continue for the rest of my life...

I too just had lower back surgery; multi-level decompression @ L1 - L5 w/ Left excension. I am active duty military and have to make a decision to stay active or retire. I am 43 and 3 wks post op and I can see I am healing quite quickly and some of which is because I was in shape going into the surgery. One thing is for sure, if your active duty, you are going to run and be physical, especially the Marine Corps. From reading the previous posts, one thing I will not do is rush the healing process. Yes, as much as I feel good I will heed the advice of others and just be patient! It seems if you rush getting back into physical activities, it seems as though you are more prone to re-injure yourself so I will be patient with my body's recovery process.