For years, people have been referring to their back pain as having a “slipped disc.” The mental image that that evokes can be quite dramatic! Discs don't actually “slip,” that term is a misnomer, but they can be injured and be the cause of back pain and/or leg pain. Let me explain first of all what the discs are.
Technically discs are called Intervertebral Discs as they are found between each of the vertebral bones in the spine. They are made of cartilage with the outer fibers encircled around a gelatinous center. They act as cushions and shock absorbers for the spine. They allow the spine to move in all directions.Because they are made of soft tissue, discs are vulnerable to injury, whether from sudden trauma or due to degenerative changes that occur over time. The other difficulty is that the discs do not have their own blood supply, so once they are injured, it is very hard for them to heal completely. When a disc is injured, instead of calling it a “slipped disc,” we call it a disc bulge or herniation or prolapse, and those terms basically define the extent of disc damage. What happens is that the outer fibers get damaged, causing the center gel to start to squirt out.
Chiropractors have traditionally treated patients with disc injuries and have had success in relieving pain and restoring normal disc function. Newer treatments for disc herniations include spinal decompression therapy, which is a form of intense traction applied to the spine. Recently a study reported in the Journal Phys. Ther. Sci. in 2014 compared treatments of manual mobilization therapy (chiropractic adjustments) and flexion-distraction therapy to spinal decompression therapy and the effects on pain and disc height. The study concluded that while both treatments showed significant decreases in pain, the chiropractic adjustment with flexion-distraction techniques also significantly increased the disc heights compared to the spinal decompression therapy.If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with disc injury, you may be a candidate for a course of chiropractic treatment in Utah to help reduce the pain and improve the disc health. Consult with the doctors of chiropractic at The Joint Cottonwood Heights to get started.
~ Dr. Brad Hendricks
