Old Mill Chiropractic Treats Disc Herniation Pain
Disc herniations cause back pain and leg pain for some. Old Mill Chiropractic welcomes those back pain sufferers due to a disc herniation. Gentle, relieving treatment without surgery is what we deliver. St Peters back pain patients are relieved 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 generated data and documented that what the pain-producing disc looks like on imaging does not really matter. The size and shape 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 duration of symptoms or severity of pre- or post-operative leg pain nor post-operative leg pain or back pain improvement, the percent of spinal canal occupation, herniation classification, or vertebral level. The size of the lumbar disc herniation didn’t have much effect on clinical outcomes. (2) Chronic lower back pain and sciatica due to lumbar disc herniation negatively impacted sleep quality. Treatment benefitted patient perception of pain in visual analog scale (VAS) scores and the PSQI Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index scores. (3) Relieving chiropractic treatment of a pain-producing disc necessitates decreasing the risk of recurrent back pain episodes as well as decreasing 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 don’t want to have it back! Old Mill Chiropractic 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 brought that on? 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 proposed risk reducers. (4) One new study reported that the amount of sedentary time probably did not raise the chance of a new episode 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 rendering the apple (and by comparison, the spine) never quite the same again. That’s where Old Mill Chiropractic 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 get it back to being strong with exercise and keeping it that way, and how to do 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) Old Mill Chiropractic promotes walking, moving, careful lifting, and especially being treated with gentle, safe, effective Cox® Technic spinal manipulation!
CONTACT Old Mill Chiropractic
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 St Peters chiropractic appointment now. Disc herniation sufferers are invited to our practice for relief and a plan for controlling its future effect on life.
