Yoga destroyed my back – here's how I fixed it without surgery

Telegraph

7 days ago

My yoga addiction began a decade ago, when I hit my 40s. It's no coincidence that this is an age where life can start getting on top of you – by 2019, in the final death throes of my marriage, my initial flirtation turned into a full-blown dependency. Not because I was particularly good at yoga – although I could stand in tree pose until the cows came home, I was far off being a contortionist – but more because it soothed my mind as much as my overworked body.
Without a daily workout followed by some form of yoga cool down – anything from 10 minutes of sun salutations to 90-minutes of Vinyasa – I would climb the walls like an addict going cold turkey.
By 2022, my addiction was peaking. The brief post-workout stretches grew into 30-minute mini yoga routines. On free evenings, I'd roll out my mat after dinner for a DIY session with my fitness app. And that's on top of the hardcore 90-minute classes.
You would assume I was in the best shape of my life, and yet I started waking up some mornings barely able to get down the stairs. Working from home as a PR consultant and a journalist, I struggled to sit at my desk comfortably enough to endure full Zoom meetings, and getting up from my ergonomic chair was agonising.
A standing desk helped a little, but was no magic bullet. I had a tight back, on-off pins and needles, an occasional limp and random foot numbness; the biting pain came in excruciating, momentary flashes.
I had an inkling that my ageing, overworked spine might be letting me down, but having a serious disc issue would have meant putting my exercise addiction on hold. So I opted for denial instead. As the pain wasn't long-lasting, I dismissed the idea of having a serious problem. And, naturally, I assumed the solution was yet more yoga.
Facing reality
When a friend who'd had disc problems suggested I needed an MRI, I slunk to my GP feeling like a hypochondriac, yet to my surprise, my MRI scan revealed that two ruptured discs in my lower back – 'lumbar disc extrusions' – were leaking onto my sciatic nerve roots and one was classed as severe. With one disc pressing on my left root and the other on the right, I consoled myself that I was, at least, in balance.
And consolation was much needed because the news was not only devastating, but also poorly timed. Newly divorced, I was in the middle of a crash course on how to deal with the world solo. As a 50-year-old mother with no partner to help with domestic duties, I was forever picking up my teenager's socks from the floor and bending down to get bowls out the dishwasher.
But my main concern wasn't physical or logistical. It was psychological. Without the mental relief I got from workouts, especially yoga, I worried I'd explode with frustration. Although I went in hard on meditation as a replacement, I still found myself lashing out at my nearest and dearest when I needed them most.
I was referred to St George's neurosurgery team, and told I had to wait eight months for my appointment. I started seeing my GP surgery's advanced physio practitioner, Jehan Yehia, to tide me over as the wait for surgery trudged on. Her monthly sessions, which were initially on the NHS but then had to be paid for privately, turned out to be my saviour.
How stopping yoga helped fix my back
Yehia, who's also a senior lecturer in physiotherapy at Roehampton University, said she'd get me functioning properly again through rehab physio alone, a far kinder alternative to the surgeon's knife. Her solution was a short-term course of the nerve pain drug, amitriptyline, and stripping everything back. No exercise at all for two weeks. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but not as bitter as the lengthier post-op recuperation protocol.
Poor Yehia, I was not an easy patient. I took 'no exercise' to mean 'well, I could probably just cut back a little by lowering my weights and doing shorter yoga sessions on alternate days'. Luckily she could see straight through the half-truths I told her at my next appointment, and explained (very patiently and diplomatically) that I needed to recalibrate my attitude to exercise.
Sometimes our physiotherapy sessions felt more like psychotherapy.
Once I'd begrudgingly accepted her advice and resisted all forms of exercise for two weeks, we began conservatively reintroducing my much-loved activities one at a time so we could identify which were problematic. I had to give up running (I used to do the odd 10k but was no marathon runner), excessive walking (although moderate walking is generally good for back pain, my hyperactive dog and I were clocking up 40 to 50km every week) and – most saddening of all – my beloved daily yoga.
We're so indoctrinated into thinking yoga can cure all ills that it's counter-intuitive to think it can make a bad back worse. Granted, some gentle yoga moves can be great for loosening a tight back, but in my case, all those long-held twists, bends and hinges were aggravating my injured discs and prolonging the issue.
The other problem is that there's often a mindset of pushing stretches as far as you can. As Yehia says, 'When the back is not happy, overstretching it and putting it into the end of range makes it even more unhappy.' This is especially the case if, like me, you're daft enough to do it every day.
By the time my surgery appointment eventually came around, Yehia's tactful and personalised physio approach, which prioritised devising back-friendly workouts tailored to my fitness levels, had got me back to near-full fitness. So much so, I decided surgery – and the depressing prospect of lengthy post-op rehab – was no longer necessary. And when Yehia told me the body's macrophage (small blood or lymph cells) would 'eat away' at my pesky extruded disc material (the source of my nerve issues), she gave me hope that my problems would eventually fade.
Re-introducing exercise back into my routine
With the mind-body connection being so strong, positivity and psychology play an important role in back rehab. For example, Yehia points out that disc issue diagnoses aren't always helpful because they can make some people inactive through a fear of moving. This is often how chronic pain starts because keeping mobile is key to dealing with a bad back. She adds it's important to find alternative ways to stay active and not to ban specific movements entirely.
So, in place of running, Yehia suggested I use the gym's stairmaster. I also started swimming and found it eased my tight back. After a while, I began squatting and lunging again too. When I was strong enough, Yehia suggested I try running up hills instead of on the flat. Strangely, by placing more force on the front of my body, it worked. She even figured out a disc-friendly way for me to manage burpees.
Her best advice, though, was swapping yoga for Pilates.
By focusing on the core, hips and back, Pilates strengthens the muscles around the spine, thus reducing the load on the back. Crucially, though, Pilates is also about keeping the spine in a neutral position, rather than flexing it to the max. So these days, although I sometimes treat myself to an occasional downward dog during a post-workout stretch, proper yoga sessions are a distant memory. This has left a gap that isn't easily filled, but over time I've found myself meditating more, perhaps as a subconscious replacement for yoga's mental health benefits.
Eighteen months after I kicked my yoga addiction, I completed the gruelling trek to Machu Picchu without any disc-related issues. That said, there are days when the old nerve pain rears its ugly head and I regret not taking the surgical option. But those days are rare, and surgical solutions like discectomies don't last a lifetime.
The friend who persuaded me to go for that MRI? Eight years from her first discectomy, she's now enduring a painful wait for her second. So, on balance, I'm glad I didn't opt for the surgical fix. The three-to-six month recovery period would have sent me, almost literally, mad. And if I'd returned to full, albeit temporary, spinal health, I'd probably have a false sense of security that would see me still torturing my discs with endless yoga. Instead, I've learnt an awful lot about my own personal triggers and how to avoid them, and that's empowering.
Three Pilates exercises that helped fix my back
Repeat each exercise 10 times on both sides for three sets.
Deadbugs
Lie with your back, bringing your knees into tabletop position.
Raise your arms towards the ceiling, engaging your core.
Slowly move your right arm back, while moving your left leg forward. Keep the lower back in neutral, stop if it arches.
Return to the starting position and repeat with the left arm and right leg
Clam
Lie on your side with your hips stacked above each other and knees bent.
Keep your feet together in line with the spine and engage your core.
Lift the top knee without rotating the hips.
Slowly lower the back down with control.
Plank
Get into an all fours position
Extend legs backwards until the body forms a straight line from head to toe
Keep hands directly under shoulders, pulling the shoulder blades together
Breathe steadily while tightening core and glutes and keeping back flat
Hold for 30-seconds and repeat three times