Herniated Disc

Search the HotYogaDoctor forum for “herniated disk” or similar terms. Lots of discussion here.

You have the same situation I do, and I’m glad you are mending. It can take a long time. You can do much to help it. If you insist on continuing with Bikram yoga, you must avoid all forward bends for a long time, in yoga and in daily life. When you start them again, you must be very slow and careful or the herniation will be aggravated and potentially the disk will slip out again. Backbends strengthen against this happening.

http://www.bikramyoga.com/BikramYoga/Herniated_Discs.php

The above link gives good advice for modifying Bikram yoga for this condition. Copy and paste it into your browser. It will answer many of your questions.

Read, study, see a doctor, chiropractor, or physical therapist, or all three. Learn all you can. How you sit, walk, stand and move in daily life will determine how your condition either progresses or heals.

I’d like to see a lot more discussion of disk herniation on this site. It’s a profoundly distressing thing and impacts sitting, sleeping, everything you do.

I try to be balanced in my approach to anything like this. Here are my reasons for sticking with backbends (although forward bends must be re-introduced, as I’ll discuss):

If you look at a diagram of a herniated disk, you will see that the two lumbar on either side of the herniated disk are sometimes shown in a bend. When we bend forward, the inside (toward the body) edges of the lumbar move closer together (allowing disk to protrude out backwards). When we bend backward, the back edges of the lumbar move closer together, theoretically creating more room on the inside for the disk to go back in. Obviously that’s a simplification. The reason a disk always herniates either to the left or to the right (right most common, for some reason), is that there is a strong band of ligament along the back of the spine that prevents the disk from coming straight out.

I think this is what complicates things. The herniation is not “straight back,” so who knows what manner of movement or exercise or bending will result in the “right” thing for the disk.

I have found backbends restorative during the day when the pain (mine is L5-S1) becomes bothersome. Sometimes I even lie face down over the two arms of a big upholstered chair, letting my spine curve down toward the seat cushion. Works like magic, but unfortunately not a permanent cure. Still, over time, I think the backbends do provide the best overall correction we can hope for.

That said, forward bending IS important. NOT forward bending at all (which is what doctors tell you to adhere to for about a year after a herniation) can bring on its own problems with shortened muscles (like the psoas) that, ironically, cause more pain through lack of stretching them. BUT we must re-learn HOW to bend forward. Hunching forward, like we do at the computer and in cars) in a C-shape bend (or slouching in soft furniture in a C-bend) tend to bring on the modern epidemic of herniated disks. We must, to forward bend correctly, stand straight, lengthen the spine, ensure the lordosis (small curve at base of spine), and bend forward like an African rice harvester … FROM THE HIPS. As well, we can bend one knee and go down, or widen our stance and go down from the hip.

Re-introducing forward bends by lying on the back and bring one, then the other, knee up to the chest and holding there, while pressing the base of the spine toward the floor, is a good place to start.

All that said, I do think each individual person has to figure out for themselves what works. I have found the multiple other things (muscle tension, trigger point tenderness, etc. etc.) arise from the constant discomfort, and then the fear of the discomfort returning when you finally get relief for a while. Some wonderful books by a Dr. Sarno discuss the ways we won’t allow ourselves to truly relax once we get a “diagnosis,” despite the fact that many herniated disks show up on MRI’s and X-rays when the patient went in for something else. They had NO SYMPTOMS from the herniation. But once we KNOW we have it … presto. We think about it all the time.

I’d love to hear more about what you all think and have experienced.

Dear Rebecca,
I completely agree that forward-bending postures are important once you realize the correct way to do them, and that’s where yoga definitely helped me. From my point of view, I would say forward and back bending sort of complement each other.

In general, after starting yoga (I do not actually practice hot yoga at the moment, but both “generic” hatha and kundalini so far), I had noticed that keeping my lower back constantly in motion, routinely bending it in all possible directions on different asanas (from lesson to lesson) was the best policy. I have enjoyed months with no pain at all.

Lately (last spring), though, I got stricken by severe pain again when doing something supposedly harmless like bending forward (correctly, I hope :-)) to grab my briefcase on the floor before going to work. This was most disappointing, since I had been doing my yoga just as always in previous days, and had absolutely no hint of pain or discomfort.

I have come back to my asanas after a couple of weeks, and I am still sort of recovering, although desperately slowly (I had lost almost all the flexibility I felt I had gained in my back in months of practice). Moreover, what scares me most is the thought that this pain “out of the blue” means that I can be doing something wrong even when I think I am doing just great.

I haven’t lost heart in yoga though, surely not. Maybe I should just make sure to get me a teacher who knows his stuff really well: I have recently bought the excellent book “Yoga Anatomy” by Leslie Kaminoff, which is full of hints on how many wrong ways there are to mess it up when performing asanas. I just wonder how many yoga instructors out there are lacking that anatomic knowledge.