What To Know About Brooks Lee's Back Injury and Disc Herniations in Baseball

Lee's injury gets lost in the shuffle a little bit because the focus has been on Correa and Lewis, but how different would this team look if Lee was healthy and with the Twins since Lewis went down...

Half way through an 8 week rehab with Dr. Watkins. Hmm. We're just hearing about it. It sounds much more serious than originally reported. Good luck with your health Mr. Lee. I hope you can make a full recovery. 

"It is by no means good news that Lee has been diagnosed with a disc herniation but, as the research shows, it also shouldn't be a cause for panic."

I think I'll panic anyway. It is the end of the world as we know it!

Whew, that felt good.

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

As someone who had a herniated disk when I was barely younger than Brooks and still playing baseball (only pitching and not nearly at the level he's at, obviously) I can say it is really hard to play through that pain when it's herniated enough to be causing constant pain. I ended up needing a discectomy so I'm hoping Brooks isn't that bad because it is definitely a relatively lengthy rehab to get back to playing, and living, pain free.

He was seemingly playing pain free for much of spring so I'd guess he's in pretty good shape for recovery here. As the article says, most of these things (at least according to my Dr) heal on their own with rehab so hopefully it was a pretty minor one that they seem to have caught pretty early on and he'll do his couple months of rehab and be back to normal.

I was expected to be having surgery every 5 to 10 years because of my situation and continuing to play sports after, but I'm now nearly 20 years removed with no significant struggles beyond flareups here and there. Lots of stretching to help keep things working correctly, but I'm by no means in good shape so there's every reason to believe Brooks can do the necessary maintenance moving forward and this will just be a blip on the radar for him.

Back troubles like this typically plague the individual the rest of their life.  I have scoliosis partly due to the fact that I grew so fast to 6'-5" in my youth.  It's not severe, but I have to be very careful how I twist or bend over because that can trigger back spasms and sharp Sciatic nerve pain which hurts so bad it literally feels like someone is stabbing you with a knife.  Really, it's that bad.  I've had multiple back hernia's and they hurt too, but the sciatic pain is 10x worse, omg, shudders. 

Years ago, I was in so much pain from a back strain and a disc hernia I went out and bought one of those Tempur-Pedic beds for $5,000.  People thought I was crazy for spending that much money on a bed but let me tell ya it was absolutely the best thing I ever did.  Have slept like a baby ever since, keeps the spine perfectly aligned during sleep, and is worth it's weight in gold.

Judging by the article he probably has a mild enlarged disc or minor disc hernia.  If it becomes a continual problem he might eventually need fusion or disc removal which is not good.  The good news is that he's young and in top physical condition which helps immensely in recovery.  

Oh man...what a horrible development.  This really sucks.  I'm assuming they will figure out a way to get him back on the field.  But it just seems like yet another in a long line of really good prospects that get saddled with injuries.  If we put our heads together we could probably put together a long list going back to Kubel tearing up his knee up along with Mauer doing the same - so on and so forth.

Anyway...sports medicine has never been better than it is now, so I'm certainly not writing him off.  But as many have mentioned...once you have back issues - it's sort of something you will continue to deal with the rest of your life.  Ugh!  Just a terrible break.  No question the kid would be playing in the bigs right now had this not occurred.  

John Castino?

10 minutes ago, Lucas Seehafer PT said:

It's just all the miles the athletes put on their bodies starting as low as age 10 is just too much to compensate for new training and treatment techniques.

You would think a team would start weighting the amount of time played in their drafting. A kid starts pitching at age 15 and is an equal rating (or maybe slightly below) as someone who started at age 10, both stars. The team would take the kid with less pitches made in his arm.

14 hours ago, davidborton said:

Lucas, maybe I am misremembering injuries from my youth of the '50s, but I never remember the slew of injuries in baseball which we see today.

Is my memory misleading me or are the athletes of today better conditioned than they were in the past? Has sports medicine really improved the durability of today's baseball players. Thanks in advance.]

I think the other guy hit on it.  We've created athletic freaks of nature that are bigger/faster than ever so it would make sense that it leads to more injuries.  Example:  24 year old Royce Lewis blowing out his quad just running the bases.  I'm 100% confident that I (a middle aged man in slightly above average shape) could run the bases without blowing out anything.  But I couldn't do as fast he does - that's for sure.  It's become a trade off.

But where the advancements come in is when you think of the surgeries and recoveries now.  Example, Adrian Peterson blew out his knee and was back running for 1,000 yards the next season.  Back in the 70/80's those injuries were career ending.  Same with Tommy John surgery.  It's like getting your tonsils taken out now - no big deal.  Most guys come back better than ever where as before they'd be washed up.  It's amazing.

Lucas - thanks for these articles. Just so helpful to get science based info. Is manual manipulation of the disk part of the therapy?

23 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Couldn't have happened at a worse time for Lee and the Twins.  Good luck on your recovery Brooks.

Boy, isn't that the truth.  Our infield hitting has been awful.