My last post was two months ago, and I have an update. I herniated in May, had the worst sciatic symptoms in my life in June, and once they cleared in July I still had residual calf weakness. My PT told me that my calf weakness worrying, so I got a second opinion with a neurosurgeon and decided to go ahead with an MD. Before I had made my decision I was SO anxious and worried for weeks if I should make the decision to go for surgery or wait for it to naturally heal with time. But now I'm glad I went ahead with surgery because after 5 weeks of post surgery recovery I am FINALLY able to raise on my left tippy toes just a little bit for the first time!!! AHHH!! After surgery I did have some foot numbness, twitching, mild dull pain on my effected leg but it was the natural course of the nerves being awakened and I didn't need painkillers. My foot is no longer numb post surgery, no dull pain and the twitching has become very mild and much less infrequent. I did have some incision pain but it went away after a week however it's been itchy on and off.

But I wanted to share this anecdote because trust, I was really thinking my calf muscle would never come back, thinking I would be hurt forever, sciatica forever, calf weakness forever, etc. Reading other success and support posts here have given me perspective that it's easy to fall into that bad thinking when you are in the vulnerable moment but there will be a time when it gets better and you really wonder why you were so paranoid. Especially in all the research I did, MD is a warranted case for calf weakness, otherwise I would have just continued with walking and McGill exercises, so it worked for me.