Denver - Broomfield CO Herniated Disc Treatment - Therapy

Some of the terms commonly used to describe and injury to the disc that sits between two vertebrae include herniated disc, prolapsed disc, and ruptured disc.

Calling this injury a "slipped disc" is misleading, as an intervertebral disc is tightly sandwiched between two vertebrae that the disc is actually attached to, so it cannot slip. The disc is actually grown together with the adjacent vertebrae and can become damaged by being squeezed, stretched and twisted, all in small degrees. It can also be torn, ripped, herniated, and degenerated.

What You Notice

Pain from a herniated disk will be more noticeable when you're active, and seems to get better when you're resting. Coughing, sneezing, sitting, driving and bending forward may make the pain worse. The pain gets worse because these movements put more pressure on the nerve. The location of the pain depends on which disk is weak. How bad the pain is depends on how much of the disk is pressing on the nerve. Some people have pain in both legs. In some people, the legs or feet feel numb or tingly.

What It Feels Like

• Mild or intense back pain
• Shooting pains down one or both legs
• Sharp pain when twisting to the left or right
• Trouble controlling limbs, loss of balance
• Numbness and tingling in feet or legs
• Pain moving or lifting the arms, or moving legs
• Sciatic symptoms

What To Do

You may take some over-the-counter pain medications like ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but only identifying and healing the disc will help the pain actually go away. You should immediately schedule an appointment with Spine & Disc to receive anti-inflammatory WaveTherapy™ and decompression treatment to begin healing the disc.

Above, How the center of a disc, the pulpous, squeezes out through a tear in the outer disc and pushes against the spinal nerves. The pinched nerves radiate pain. In these views, the tear in the outer disc is visible as the disc interior, the pulpous, creates a bulged or torn "hernia", that squeezes out between the vertebrae pushing into the nerves that emerge from the spinal cord along the spine. The pressing causes sharp shooting pains to be felt near the hernia area, and down the length of the entire nerve.