You are very welcome. I hope you can benefit from the years I've spent dealing with back pain, and maybe it'll be shorter for you! :agree:
I've spent a lot of time in the gym. You couldn't tell it by looking at me now lol. I do have pics from back then, tho.
In my twenties I was cut from working with weights. I loved it. I was also a dancer. What I was not doing, and which I'm paying for now, I didn't exercise all those little muscles along the spine, and in the abdominal floor. I could pull my own body weight on the nautilus overhead pull down machine, but I couldn't swim the length of a lap pool doing the American crawl because those muscles were so weak. Sure, I could lift a case of paper over my head, but those little muscles had nothing to give.
You can do a lot of core strengthening exercises with the ball. The trick with pilates is using proper form. Google it, read it up it. There's tons of books, look through several of them to get some ideas. Once you get into it, I'm sure you will be surprised how pilates can very strenuous exercise. If your insurance covers physical therapy, it will pay for pilates training administered by a licensed physical therapist. Like any other treatment, it needs to be prescribed and billed properly.
There are many pilates exercises that can be done at home with little or no equipment. There are also what physical therapists call Core Stabilization exercises which are very similar/identical to pilates. You can probably find these online. If not, I can scan the ones that I have, and email them to you - but it's not the full set, and may not fit your situation exactly.
And for chrissakes, don't go with narcotic pain pills instead of rehabilitation! That's a good way to get an "old" back very fast. I only take narcotic pain stuff for surgery that requires an anesthesiologist. Then it's gimme the IM demarol, doc! Other than that - I manage without pain meds by taking care of my body.
You can overcome this, and I think you will be surprised how much is in your control.