Q. I have continuous back pain. Is it sciatica?

Hello doctor,

I am having back pain. Six months ago I had S1 and L5 fusion. Normally, no surgery or anything. My doctor asked me to take rest. Then two months back I was again having pain in my back and no findings from my X-ray. Then I did an MRI four days back when I was having pain in my legs mainly in the thigh, calf, and foot. The pain is continuous. It is not resting for a minute, but the amount of pain varies sometimes a lot sometimes a little.

I am 25 years old male. I was so active with all the sports activity and all, for last one year. After I bought my bike I stopped playing most of the sports, also the walking came down to below average because of the bike. Does the less walking have something to do with all that I am suffering? I had two to three accidents with my bike, but none of them were serious ones. I mean I did not get hurt badly. Just some scratches on my hand. So I am confused if the condition is done from a trauma. The doctors asked me to take one month rest and physiotherapy at this moment. Please suggest me what to do, I am really worried if it is sciatica or something even greater. I only want to heal the issue, recover from it completely even if that takes me one year or two.

Hello doctor,

The pain is less now compared to three days back. The pain starts to slow down but does not go away when I lie down, but I feel better. But when I walk up I feel the pain there. So, I guess it does continue when I lie down, it is just that after falling in sleep I do not know it is there. Yes, the pain radiates to the legs. It is kind of different than the pain I guess. It is more like a lot of pointy things being pinching. But again sometimes it is pain. My questions are as follows:

1. The disc bulge I have, the doctor said it is very little and will heal with rest and physiotherapy. Is it correct? He said I do not need any surgery.
2. When I try to climb stairs to go up to say from ground floor to the fourth floor my leg starts feeling pain.

But a few minutes of walk helps, I feel better. One of the doctors tried to push my legs upwards and after a certain point, I started to feel pain. So he said yeah there is compression. So does compression go away with physiotherapy? It is not sciatica. Can you confirm that? I am so worried. And again to my main question, will I be able to heal completely if I take rest and go through physiotherapy for one year?