Weekly Health Talk with Dr. P: What is Disc Pain

Did you know the discs in your back are similar to Jelly Donuts? Most times, when you have an injured disc, this is because the dough portion has torn and the jelly Is trying to escape causing PAIN!

Hey gang, Dr. Parson here to talk about lower back pain. And lower back pain specifically regarding disc injuries. People search the internet trying to learn more about their lower backs because um it's quite prevalent out there unfortunately, and we'll get into the reasons behind that. But the goal is to educate you, what we can do, what you can do, and where to seek treatment, and what are disc injury is all about. They come in many shapes and sizes and common examples we'll talk about: bulging discs, herniated discs, degenerative discs, torn disc fibers that's about it. You know, if you're searching and trying to learn about disc, I wanted to give you some good solid Information. Bottom line, these all of them are injured discs and if you'll picture a disc like a jelly donut and the donut portion oftentimes the donut portion gets torn from various reasons, we'll go into that. And the internal jelly tries to get out through the donut portion and that's very painful. There's a lot of nerves and those areas are supposed to be separated. So, that causes a lot of pain with discs. Herniated discs, or when there's on the outside some of the jelly's moved out that way. Bulging is when the outside is just stretched and it's bulging out. Degenerative disc is arthritic disc, same thing as arthritis but it's in your spine. Unfortunately, these are all too common in our office and it's probably the most prevalent thing that we treat. This pain is one, if not the leading cause of debilitating pain and loss of activities of daily living and I think you'll also lose time from work, you're not unable to lift the child, I can't exercise and on and on and on the list go on. Because as you may have learned, everything involves your back. Once you have back pain, you understand this: that you reaching up the cupboard bending over, just trying to do the simplest things because it's in the middle of your body and everything revolves around it and that's why it takes so much abuse and breaks down so often. So, you know, right behind me I don't know if you see there's the light in it but this is this is a patient you all this is hardware up here. This this is nasty hardware, it's even got a spine stimulator  that was six surgeries on this lower back. We didn't, we weren't able to get her a whole lot better but my patience I probably should have been a little more patient and she probably wishes we had too because the lady's stuck in a bent position, it was a nasty disc issue and didn't go well. We don't want that all right. That's one you want to avoid. As a general rule, if you have lower back pain this issue has been diagnosed it should be treated conservatively, at first period uh chiropractic before ever considering back surgery. An advanced chiropractic association you know my training, I'm board-certified chiropractor orthopedics. Well, that said, I'm a non-surgical orthopedist. So, you're going to get the diagnostics and the treatment but you're not going to get the surgery and medication from me, time and place. But make chiropractic your first choice, not your last choice. Have a good day.