was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease years ago after a car accident. I ve always exercised and it was fine. About a month or so ago was doing some extensive work in a grocery store in the freezers. Lots of pulling, lifting, and fast paced moving. Noticed that my back started hurting and got so bad a couple of nights that I had to get out of bed. Slept with a pillow between my legs and that helped. Now my back is not as bad but hurts from time to time but now there is a soreness (like a bruise) on the left side of my lower spine as if I ve sat against something hard for a while. No numbness or tingling just achy and bruised feeling.
Hello dear friend, I understand your concern. Degenerative disc disease has a well-defined plan of treatment. If your symptoms are not letting you functionally independent(even after trying conservative treatment or medicines), surgery is an option. Otherwise, if you are doing well with medicines, you have to continue with conservative treatment. In your case, symptoms are not even persistent, rather intermittent. So, you need to consult a good physiotherapist for spinal exercises and that will help you surely, in addition, some skeletal muscle relaxants and antineuralgics(like pregabalin but after consultation with your physician) medicines may be taken to relieve pain. I hope it helps.