Lifting with a bulging disc at L4-L5, some radiculopathy in toes afterwards: break?

Hi everyone,

Long story short, I had a low-back injury about a year ago. I woke up with foot drop and mild pain and numbness in my left calf, which in a few months grew into more pain in toes and calves, occasionally on both sides. I dropped quite a bit of weight to unload my spine and did all the physio exercises consistently for about 6 months. My foot drop resolved itself and the numbness went away as the pain moved up to my hamstrings, glutes and eventually low back. I am now mostly symptom free, I will have the occasional nerve pain (3-5 mins.) every few days. I have started seeing a new physio, who has agreed that I could start lifting to get some strength a couple months back.

I started with very light loads and have been following SL 5x5 for the last 5 weeks without much issues in terms of lifting the weights.

After my deadlift days, I get some more pain in my toes at night and sometimes while walking in my shins or calves. This goes on for 2-3 days and resolves until I deadlift again. Today, I switched to sumo deadlifts to relieve the load on my low back. Now, this could be because of squats as well, just can't tell since I do squats and DLs the same day. Or it might be compounding factors.

Current stats:

Body weight: 156 lbs
Height: 5'10

Squats: 115 lbs
Barbell Rows: 110 lbs
OHP: 60 lbs
DL: 95 lbs

I have doctoral candidacy exams this month which will take the entire month, so I was wondering, if I should be conservative this month and maybe stop increasing the loads and see how I respond to deadlifting 95 for a month or should I simply stop for the time being.

I might get a new MRI, but that takes like 6 months (Canada, eh).

Thanks in advance,
S.

MRI is a pre-surgical test. If you are not contemplating surgery (and you shouldn’t be at this point), there is no reason for an MRI.

Pay close attention to your deadlift form.