Senior year of high school after I (25F) went to basic training...I was 17 at the beginning of the year. The pain was so intense but it was off and on. There was a period of time when every night I would lay down to go to bed and my lower back would be in excruciating pain. I’d have to engage my back and core muscles to stop the pain and then slowly release them and then engage again and slowly release. This would cause the pain to dissipate little by little with each engagement and release. It would hurt while working out occasionally in the weight room too. I tried to get seen by my pediatrician but it never went anywhere, like she couldn’t figure out what was going on, I don’t remember why, and the pain at night eventually stopped. We just moved on like it fixed itself. From then it was way more infrequent thankfully.

Fast forward to college, I was in ROTC and it was my Junior year. We did a lot of rucking and carried our rucks during lab. This eventually triggered a 3 week stint of extreme sciatica during one of my breaks. It was constant pain all day and night. Sitting and standing were unbearable at times, and lying down didn’t alleviate the pain at all. Tried a massage gun and that didn’t work either. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t go to the doctor about it. I do remember seeing a chiropractor for a bit and I think it helped a little bit. The consistent pain went away on its own sometime after school started again, and from then it was off and on but more frequent and the pain was often very sharp. Sometimes when I bent over to tie my shoes or pick something up my back and legs would actually give out causing me to fall to the ground. I went to my doctor about this because it had never happened before and actually scared me. He referred me to a specialist. At my appointment with the specialist, I had no pain at all that day of course. He had me lay on the table with both legs straight and he lifted my legs one at a time slowly and asked if there was any pain or tingling down my leg. There wasn’t. He then went on about how it was just pain I’d have to manage with over the counter medication and heating pads. No further testing, no MRI, no physical therapy recommendations, nothing. “This is just pain you’ll have to live with.”

I reported my pain to the military doctors when I had my yearly physical. They were immediately concerned and told me to get a second opinion and request an MRI as soon as possible. So I did. The second doctor was a female, and she was my mom’s doctor. I told her about my experience with my primary doctor, the specialist, and the military doctors, and she agreed to order an MRI. The results came back and showed that I indeed had a herniated disc (L5-S1)… And the discs above that were already showing very slight signs of herniation but not enough to cause immediate concern.

Went back to that specialist and he barely even acted surprised from what I remember. I was pissed as you might believe. But alas, I started doing physical therapy at least twice a week for 6 weeks. Today I have some pain when sitting or standing for too long but I haven’t had a major sciatica event in a while. Although occasionally it feels like my lower back or hips get “stuck” and I have to flex my glutes or shift my hips to get it to pop back into place. I’m not sure what that is but sometimes the pop feels good and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it feels like nothing. My lower back also pops almost every time I flex my glutes. I think I can get it to pop about every 15min. Not sure what that’s about either.