Sacramento Back Pain Relief

There are so many confusing terms used to describe spinal injury: slipped disc, bulging disc, herniated disc, ruptured disc, protrusion, prolapse, disc extrusion. Besides being thoroughly mixed up, you might ask, what’s the difference?

These terms are confusing to both patients and their doctors. In reality, there is not a whole lot of difference between all of these terms. They all describe injury or damage to the internal fibers of the spinal disc and attempt to differentiate the degree of the damage. Some of these terms are no longer recommended. Let’s take a closer look at each:

• Slipped Disc is a term that is used by patients primarily. Actually, spinal discs don’t “slip”. This is a lay person’s description of injury.
• Bulging Disc is a commonly used term that describes a injured disc that has bulged less than 3mm past its normal margins.
• Herniated Disc is a commonly used term to describe injury. It is the preferred term for disc protrusion and implies a contained disc in which the annular fibers are still attempting to restrain the nucleus of the disc.
• Ruptured Disc is a common term for injury that has been abandoned because it implies great trauma.
• Protrusion is a herniation in which the distance of the protrusion is less than the width of its base.
• Prolapse is a noncontained disc in which the annular fibers are radically torn and allow the nuclear materal to sequester or free-fragment into the spinal canal. It is not a commonly used term and is no longer recommended to describe disc injury.
• Extrusion is a herniation in which the distance of the protrusion exceeds the width of its base. It best describes the older term of prolapse.

Now that you have a better understanding of these terms, do need help with a slipped disc, bulging disc or herniated disc? Contact Sacramento chiropractor, Dr. Jeri Anderson at 916-368-1600.

Often patients are concerned about whether their back pain or leg pain signs and symptoms are caused by a spinal disc injury and inquire about how to tell if their back pain or leg pain is from a spinal disc injury. While this article is not intended to diagnose your back pain or provide treatment advise, we can offer a few clues to ask your chiropractor about. Generally speaking, spinal disc injuries or spinal disc pain often display some or all of the following signs and symptoms:

• Increased back pain or leg pain (sciatica) with coughing, sneezing, laughing or straining on the toilet. These activities increase the pressure in the injured spinal disc. 
• Increased back pain or leg pain with sitting and/or driving or sitting in a car. While you may think that sitting is resting your back, it is not resting your lower lumbar spinal discs! Your lower back discs are working hard when you sit. Sitting increases the pressure in the lower back discs.
• Increased pain when bending forward at the waist. This type of motion increases the pressure in the lower back discs producing pain.
• Pain or numbness in one or both legs or feet. Spinal disc injuries can refer pain into the legs or feet by compressing or irritating the nerves that travel to the legs and feet as they exit the spine. In lay terms, this is often referred to as a pinched nerve. Pain that travels down the back of the leg past the knee is referred to as sciatica or sciatic pain.
• Weakness in the legs or feet. Lumbar disc injuries can cause foot drop, which is the inability to lift the front of the foot as you walk, producing a foot slapping or dragging gait.
• Loss of bowel or bladder control. These are red flag signs of potential severe lumbar disc injury that places pressure on the nerves that control the bowels and/or bladder, thus disturbing their function.

If you have any of these spinal disc injury signs or symptoms, see your chiropractor or other health care provider. Chiropractors are well trained in the evaluation and care of disc injury, back pain and sciatica (sciatic pain)..