What is the Pain Like? and MRI as a Cosmic Burger

Symptoms vary day by day. Here are the main features that persist:

Acute radiating nerve pain (sciatica) from the lumbar region to the left hip and down into the left thigh.

Frequent immobilizing cramps and spasms in the left leg, sometimes down the calve.

Dull pain in back area. Sometimes sharp back pain that can bring lock-up moments. Requiring a sit-down and a wait.

All of these, I'm informed, are common effects of a protruding (herniated or ruptured) disc causing a pinched a nerve   The two other less-serious bulging discs - one with a small tear - also may be contributing. Or future accidents waiting to happen.

The Cosmic Hamburger Bun is the "standup MRI" near Holy Cross Hospital, where I went in for pictures. My GP sent me there after I expressed severe willies about a standard MRI coffin tube. He said I couldn't lay still anyway, so I went to this odd place and climbed a few steps to sit on a plastic chair squeezed between two giant hamburger buns (the resonating magnet housings). I was the pickle on the cheeseburger for a half hour as the robotic thing wheezed and whirred around me.