How a Life-Changing Back Surgery Helped a College Student Reclaim His Future

By late June 2024, Charlie Johnson’s summer was already off track. The 21-year-old biomedical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati was home in Akron for a co-op rotation when a familiar issue — back spasms he’d been managing for years — suddenly took a turn for the worse.

“I’ve been getting back spasms for years. They will tense and release but aren’t usually painful,” he says. “They started as the result of a back injury I sustained playing soccer in high school.”

But this time was different. His usual spasms were now accompanied by searing, radiating pain. “I had a dull ache in my back that radiated down through my glute and down my left leg,” he says. “It was excruciatingly painful; it felt like someone was playing tug of war with my leg tendon.”

An X-ray didn’t show anything unusual, so Charlie was initially diagnosed with hamstring tendonitis and referred to physical therapy. But within days, the pain intensified to the point where he ended up in the emergency department. “I knew something more had to be going on because my condition was worsening,” he says.

An MRI finally revealed the true source of his pain: a herniated L-5/S-1 disc. “My doctor said it would get better on its own but that it would likely take six to nine months,” he says. Steroid medication and physical therapy didn’t provide relief. In fact, the pain was so intense, Charlie could barely function.

“At this point I was due back at school in six weeks, and I was also trying to complete my co-op remotely since I was in too much pain to go into the office,” he says. “I was growing increasingly worried about whether I would be able to return to school at all.”

For Charlie, taking a semester off wasn’t a simple option. Enrolled in a demanding five-year biomedical engineering program with alternating school and co-op rotations, missing one semester could delay his graduation by a full year. “If I didn’t make it back to school in mid-August, I was likely going to have to take a year off which would have been taken me out of my cohort with my friends,” he says.

Desperate for a solution, Charlie was referred to Cleveland Clinic Akron General board-certified spine surgeon Jacob Hoffmann, MD. “When I first met Charlie, he was having nerve-related symptoms down his leg that correlated with the pathology in his MRI,” says Dr. Hoffmann. “He had weakness in his leg and was not seeing improvements with PT or medications.

“With teens and young adults, we strive to maximize conservative treatments first, but there comes a time when that doesn’t work that you may have to turn to surgery,” he adds. “Due to the size of Charlie’s disc herniation and his pain, I recommended a minimally invasive microdiscectomy procedure.”

During the outpatient procedure, performed under anesthesia, a 1-inch incision is made to access the affected disc space. “I move the nerve roots and identify the disc herniation and pluck it out,” says Dr. Hoffmann. “After that, the nerve root should go back to normal because there’s no more tension on the nerve.”

Charlie underwent surgery on July 31, 2024, at the Akron General Health and Wellness Center in Bath. “I really trusted Dr. Hoffmann,” says Charlie. “He didn’t say it was going to be a quick fix. I knew I would have to follow the rehab program after surgery and I’d have some limitations, but I felt confident I was going to be OK which is why I got it done.”

For the next eight weeks, Charlie was under strict activity restrictions. “He wasn’t allowed to do any bending, twisting or heavy lifting for eight weeks,” says Dr. Hoffmann. “He also worked closely with our physical therapist, Patrick Bauch, to develop an at-home PT program he could take back to Cincinnati with him.”

Charlie was able to slowly regain his strength through his PT exercises. (Photo Courtesy: Cleveland Clinic)

“The PT exercises weren’t hard, but I had to do them consistently,” says Charlie. “I went back to school two weeks post-op and was walking up to 3 miles a day. It made me very tired, and I needed to lie down often.”

As his strength returned, so did Charlie’s ambition to resume his normal life — maybe a little too quickly. “I went back to soccer three months post-op and learned that was too soon when I suffered a flare,” he says.

Dr. Hoffmann says this kind of hiccup is common in recovery. “Recovery is a process, and it’s easy to overdo it when you’re finally feeling good again,” he says. “Fortunately, Charlie’s flare was a wake-up call, and we were able to manage it conservatively with physical therapy and chiropractic.”

Now, Charlie is committed to a more cautious, long-term approach — one that prioritizes core strength and back protection. “I’ve learned that when your surgeon says no running or soccer for six to nine months, he really means it,” says Charlie, who returned to physical therapy in person to get back on track.

Despite the setback, Charlie is grateful he had the surgery when he did. “I was very fortunate Dr. Hoffmann was able to do the surgery so quickly so that I could resume my life,” he says.

For Dr. Hoffmann, that’s what it’s all about. “Helping people return to their lives with no or reduced pain is a privilege,” he says.