I don't mind sharing my location. I live in Tennessee and I have already tried to apply for Tenncare (our states medicare system) but was denied and I went to the only free medical clinic in the city and the Dr. there was to say the least a joke. I went to him on 4 different occasions in the past 5 months and he told me there was nothing wrong with my back and to just do some stretching and I would be fine of course he was wrong and now my back is worse then it was when I first went to see him.

As far as the MRI report goes I was never given one however someone from the hospital I had the MRI done at called me on Monday to tell me that I did have an herniated disc on L5/S1 and I was given a cd when I had the MRI done which has images of all my scans and on them they do show herniation at that disc. Here is a sample of one of my scans

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I don't know if that helps answer any of my questions or not or if you can tell me if that is a mild herniation or a sever herniation just by looking at the image because I certainly don't have a clue.


Anyway my other question still does stand which is if I would be ok going back to work or not considering I sit in a chair for so long everyday and what can / should I do to minimize my chances of making this worse (like exercises or stretching or anything that I can do to keep things from getting worse but still having a somewhat normal life)


Thanks again in advance for your replies they really are appreciated.

Mike