Many patients with back pain, leg pain, or weakness of the lower extremity muscles are diagnosed with a herniated disc. When a disc herniation occurs, the cushion that sits between the spinal vertebra is pushed outside its normal position. A herniated disc would not be a problem if it weren’t for the spinal nerves that are very close to the edge of these spinal discs.
Symptoms
When the spinal cord or spinal nerves become compressed, they don’t work properly. This means that abnormal signals may get passed from the compressed nerves, or signals may not get passed at all.
Approximately 90% of disc herniations will occur toward the bottom of the spine at L4- L5 (lumbar segments 4 and 5) or L5- S1 (lumbar segment 5 and sacral segment1), which causes pain in the L5 nerve or S1 nerve, respectively
Treatments
In most cases, if a patient’s low back and/or leg pain is going to get better after a lumbar herniated disc it will start to do so within about six weeks. While waiting to see if the disc will heal on its own, several non-surgical treatment options can help reduce the back pain, leg pain and discomfort caused by the herniated disc.
Physical Therapy’s main goal is to strengthen your core muscles and help relax the muscle around your herniated disc problem. A typical physical therapy session will start off with stretching and core muscle exercises. The core muscle exercises will help strengthen the muscles that surround your spine. Next, they will use the Tens Machine and a heating pad.
Chiropractic Therapy’s main goal is to manipulate the spine so that the disc releases just enough pressure off the nerve so that pain and numbness will alleviate. Most doctors will not recommend continuous stretching and cracking of the back.
Epidural injections are used to help reduce the inflammation of the herniated disc. The shot is not a pain killer. The shot contains a steroid, an anti-inflammatory drug, which will create separation of the disc and the nerve so that the pain and numbess can start to alleviate. The epidural shots work on some people and can be a one time procedure if the pinched nerve is caught early.