I popped my two discs around L5. So far I'm trying to avoid surgery, pain is mostly under control at the moment but I've had extreme ups and downs for the last few months so...

Thank you for the exercise advice, I'll look them up and compare with what I'm currently doing. I do the McGill big 3 every day plus some other exercises and stretches I learned during physical therapy but I don't know the names of those.

I don't know exactly what these are based on your descriptions, but I went through physical therapy and was given some stretches/exercises that do for sure help some. It isn't a "cure", but as you said, if you have back pain and can do them, you should be trying to.

Ty for this

I suffered a slipped L5-S1 disc last Nov - suffering symptoms of pain and numbness in my left upper calf and outer side of my left foot. I did an MRI in Dec and there was nerve compression found and a degenerating L5-S1 disc.

Eventually the pain went away and the numbness became much less obvious but the doctors I saw recommended microdisectomy to avoid further potential damage to the nerve.

Immediately after the op (I did it 20th Feb) I did feel better but one or two days later the numbness returned stronger than before the op. Now on medication to try and see if the inflammation is temporary or something long term. Sigh