ok mate i'll do my best but this is a long story..... i'll give you everything i can remember as significant so you can compare it to what you know or may have done.
It began with a snowboarding accident something like this... dodgy skiier behind...crunch....crack...arghhh.
I continued anyway even though it ached like hell and i couldn't sit down or even lay down for more than a few hours without the disc puffing up. Never the less i was young and foolish and fully believed myself to be invincible. I returned home after the holiday and rested it fully. About 3 months later it felt a bit more stable although still pretty dodgy, but like i said i thought i could take it. So i started my winter weights regime and sure enough when i was doing some power cleans there was a nasty occurance in my back.
I stopped straight away, but it must have been the last straw because when i woke up the next morning i was like a geriatric. I could hardly move and my whole midsection was imobilised + when i got up i had sciatica moving from one leg to the other. That went on for quite a while until i finally went to see the doctor. Duur not to quick off the mark.....
I went to see an osteopath and all that rubbish but it barely improved even though i was resting. It probably didn't help that i tried to throw again a couple of times each summer on some very sporadic training.
That went on until 2001 when i got some cash together and took myself off to a proper chiropratic clinic. They did the first xray which showed that i still had a crack in the rear side of the disc where the muscles of the lower back attach, they were effectively keeping it unfused at that point as they pull apart in opposite directions.
So heres what they did- first up alot of manipulations to straighten my spine out as the instability had caused it to go all over the place. After that and most significantly i think i was taught how to hold my posture properly when standing, walking, sitting and bascially everthing. Before that i was the hunched over type. I also got myself a mega hard bed to aid stability and healing and was advised to sleep with my knees up and to spend equal ammounts of time on either side and not sleep too long on my back or front.
After just a few weeks it began to feel more relaxed- even when i woke up in the morning, which previously took me up to 4 hours or so before it felt even half ok.
As soon as it got a bit more stable they gave me some stretches to do. The two best for me were:
A- stand in an upright position with a slight pelvic tilt and squat down, grab the edge of the bath or something low to stabilise you and lean back a little so your arse goes as low as possible- then tuck it in and curl your upper back forward too bringing your chin down. This causes separation in the discs and eases the nerves and muscles. I still do that now but can balance by reaching forward with my arms so i don't have to hold anything.
B- lying on your back with legs bent feet on the floor, place one leg over the other putting the ankle just behind the knee. Grab the first leg behind the knee and with your head slightly raised off the floor pull it gently towards your chest as far as you can. I did both of these in 3's for 1 minute each morning and night.
Very soon i was put into rehab proper- doing sets of supermans and then adding ankle and wrist weights to increase the tension. I also did situps where you raise the knee to the chin alternating legs. Another was leg and back raises from a laying position. The last and perhaps best one was to lie on one side with the legs together and put a cushion under my hip, then similtaneously raise the top most leg and upper body and hold for 3 seconds. When i could hold for a minute i was made to increase the tension by raising both legs together and the whole body with both arms off the ground so only my hip was touching the ground. I got this up to 1 minute too.
I still do all of theses stretches and exercises periodically for maintanence.
As soon as i began to feel good again, i think it was after about 6 months or so i went back to the weights room and did 2 exercises which take the stability to the next level. 1 side bends with an olympic bar on the shoulders stretching down sideways until the end touches the ground beside my foot- keeping it under control all the time. The other is what i call disc rotations. Hold a 2,5kg plate at arms length infront of your chest with your knees slightly flexed and hips in neutral postion and draw circles with it rotating around your body making special effort to lean as far as possible to the sides but not too far backwards. Do this one very slowly and controlled and remember as with all exercises like this to rotate the other way too.
I built this up until i could manage 20kg and then began doing all the other regular weights and training very slowly at first building up to my old maximum levels by mid 2003.
Since 2003 i have had one relapse but using the stretches and exercises above i got it back to health within 3 months!!!
After my rehab I have been able to do all of the regular training including half squats of 200kg+ and power cleans 115kg + jumping, sprints, medball etc. It is still sometimes a little stiff but i always make an effort to do the things which i know work for me and it stays in condition.
Reading the time scales involved here you will notice it has been a very long time, but you have to realise this all happened to me as a youngster having just learned a bit of technique and thrown over 60m. I was absolutely mad keen to get back at it and wouldn't accept my situation. I feel like i have picked up where i left off to some extent even though i'm alot older now. Its been well worth it not just from a javelin point of view but generally too- because at the worst times i could barely walk and at best suffered from severe stiffness and obviously frustration too.
It needn't take so long as it did me though as i spent plenty of time doing things that were not helping and also plenty of time not knowing what was wrong with me or what i should be doing. + you are probably already out of the woods in terms of healing.
I really hope this is of some help to you or others and if you want to know more about anything just ask- because if it could do the same for you as it has for me maybe i'll see you back on the circuit.