Leinster boss Leo Cullen says Jamie Heaslip could require further surgery on his back after not including him in his initial Champions Cup squad yesterday.
The Ireland number eight has been out of action since sitting out of the final Six Nations game against England in March. He later had surgery on his back to deal with a disc issue.
Cullen also confessed he wasn't sure when Heaslip would return.
"It will depend if he has to go for another procedure or not," Cullen told the Irish Mirror.
"Okay so, he has to weight that up with the surgeon and the specialist that he's seeing.
"That will be the decision he'll have to come to himself and with the help of the medics as well."
Cullen also explained it is a similar injury he suffered years ago.
"I definitely had issues and if I was to have my time again I probably would have opted to have this microdiscectomy procedure," said Cullen.
"But there have been huge advances even since I was playing the game and sports medicine is changing all the time."
Cullen added: "Even this morning I was reading about (Munster hooker) Mike Sherry being out for a year with his back and now he's back involved, so they can be slow.
"So apologies for vagueness, but it's very difficult for us to give definitive answers on an injury that is grey.
"And yeah it's a difficult time for Jamie because of that uncertainty, so that's the way it's going to be, unfortunately.
"We would have loved to have seen Jamie maybe back now, we thought originally the surgery would be straight-forward, that's what we would have hoped for, but it hasn't been as straight-forward as we would have liked.
"I was in this situation whereas I didn't have surgery at the time, I made my way back and still feel the effects of it now 12 years later.
"So that's just the nature of the injury and everyone just needs to be patient and understand it's a complicated injury that Jamie has."
Cullen still believes Heaslip will eventually return to action. "Definitely confident," said Cullen.
"The things about Jamie is that he's had so few injuries – amazing physical resilience that he's shown.
"He's working his way back and I'm not sure how long it will be, he just needs to get himself sorted and we'll leave him in the hands of the medics.
"But it's grey in terms of return to play at the moment."
Cullen also discussed Robbie Henshaw's return date.
"He's pretty close," said Cullen. "We'll err on side of caution and have a look at him for next week".
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