Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation Treats Disc Herniation Pain
Disc herniations can bring about back pain and leg pain for some. Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation welcomes those back pain sufferers due to a disc herniation. Gentle, relieving treatment without surgery is what we deliver. Carrolltown back pain patients find relief when they find us!
DISC HERNIATION: Size, Weight, Sleep
What matters when a disc causes back pain? Its size? Its weight? Its effect on quality of life? Spinal researchers have generated data and documented that how the painful disc appears on imaging doesn’t really matter. The shape and size of an intervertebral spinal disc’s protruded nucleus pulposus has no tie to a patient’s clinical presentation or symptomatology or how a patient feels. (1) The weight of a disc fragment did not relate to the amount of time the symptoms lasted or severity of pre- or post-operative leg pain nor post-operative leg pain or back pain improvement, the percentage of space the disc occupied in the spinal canal, 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 impacted sufferer’s quality of sleep. Treatment improved 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 entails 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’ve felt back pain related to a disc herniation, you don’t want to have it back! Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation 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 ambulation time after surgery affected the risk of recurrent disc herniation. Combined, older age, male sex, high body mass index (BMI), and early ambulation were significant factors in the experience of a recurrent 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 increase the risk of a new bout 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 is where Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation comes in with a treatment plan that ensures you know all there is to know about a disc herniation, how to nutritionally take care of it, how to exercise to return it to strength and keep it strong, and how to perform activities of daily living to avert (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) Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation promotes walking, moving, careful lifting, and especially being treated with gentle, safe, effective Cox® Technic spinal manipulation!
CONTACT Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation
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 expect with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management.
Schedule your Carrolltown chiropractic appointment soon. Disc herniation sufferers are welcomed to our practice for relief and a plan for controlling its future effect on life.
