Call Us at 225-924-3989

Or
Contact Us

Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers Treats Disc Herniation Pain

July 26, 2022

Disc herniations cause back pain and leg pain for some. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers welcomes those back pain sufferers due to a disc herniation. Gentle, relieving treatment without surgery is what we provide. Baton Rouge back pain patients find relief when they find us!

DISC HERNIATION: Size, Weight, Sleep

What matters when a disc produces back pain? Its size? Its weight? Its effect on quality of life? Spinal researchers have produced data and documented that how the painful disc appears on imaging does not really matter. The size and shape of an intervertebral spinal disc’s bulging nucleus pulposus has no tie to a what a patient’s symptoms may be or how a patient feels. (1) The weight of a disc fragment did not correlate with the duration of symptoms or severity of pre- or post-operative leg pain nor post-operative leg pain or back pain improvement, the percentage of spinal canal occupation, herniation classification, or vertebral level. The size of the lumbar disc herniation didn’t have much effect on patient outcomes. (2) Chronic lower back pain and sciatica due to lumbar disc herniation adversely affected sleep quality. Treatment benefitted patient perception of pain in visual analog scale (VAS) scores as well as in the PSQI Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index scores. (3) Relieving chiropractic treatment of a pain-producing disc necessitates reducing the risk of recurrent back pain episodes as well as reducing the pain of the current episode.

MANAGING BACK PAIN AND RISK OF ITS RECURRENCE

Once you have experienced a disc herniation and its resulting back pain, you do not want it again! Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers gets that and shares that managing - as conservatively as possible - the disc herniation is more realistic than curing it. 6.05% of lumbar discectomy surgery patients had a re-current disc herniation. What prompted this? On their own, factors like age, BMI, current smoking status, heavy lifting, degenerative facet joint disease, operation time, and the time it took to ambulate after surgery influenced the risk of recurrent disc herniation. Combined, older age, male sex, high body mass index (BMI), and early ambulation were significant factors in the recurrence or a lumbar disc herniation. Managing weight, not lifting heavy items, and exercising were suggested risk reducers. (4) One new study reported that the amount of sedentary time probably did not raise the chance of a new occurrence of low back pain as much as the amount and type of physical activity. (5) Pain relief comes more as a roller coaster than a straight hill to pain relief. A disc herniation is like a bruise on an apple making the apple (and by comparison, the spine) never quite the same again. That’s where Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers comes in with a treatment plan that ensures you understand the disc herniation, how to feed it nutritionally, how to exercise to return it to strength and keep it strong, and how to perform activities of daily living to prevent (re)injury. A recent systematic review of ways to approach the management of back pain revealed 10 approaches: manipulation/mobilization, psychological/behavioral, advice to stay active/bed rest, reassurance, antidepressants, NSAIDS, opioids, muscle relaxants, and paracetamol. (6) Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers encourages walking, moving, careful lifting, and especially being treated with gentle, safe, effective Cox® Technic spinal manipulation!

CONTACT Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Robert Patterson on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates the realistic expectations back pain patients can have with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management.

Make your Baton Rouge chiropractic appointment soon. Disc herniation sufferers are welcomed to our practice for relief and a plan for controlling its future impact on life. 

Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers offers non-surgical treatment for relief of disc herniation related back pain.