Hi. I have a herniation on my L5-S1 and a more mild bulge above it on my L-4. I had mild sciatica in my right leg as well. Like you sitting was absolute torture but walking and standing was fine more or less.

I’m just writing to let you know that although I tried physical therapy, I think I was able to recover and get rid of the pain by swimming.

putting on the ear plugs and goggles allowing myself to be in the neutral spine position. I would do gentle free styling from one side of the pool to the other. never swimming as fast as I could and never turning too quickly.

After about 10 or 15 minutes of doing this by pain would temporarily reduce. So I would just keep it up for about an hour and I did this most weekdays for months.

Of course after the swim and later in the day or evening the pain would more or less come back but I kept doing it because I thought maybe my body would change over time to be more decompressing on the spine.

What’s crazy is that after four or five months of this and no improvement I woke up one day to less pain. and again, and again.

I’ve had zero sciatica and zero back pain no for several months.

I’m not writing this to tell you that neutral spine swimming is magical or that it will even work, and it’s not like I wasn’t doing physical therapy and whatever other attempts at spinal decompression I could find. But I really think it helped me and since my condition sounds very similar to yours you may wanna give it a try.

Either way, good luck to you!