Certain activities like lifting weights or playing a sport might also cause a herniation. People experience symptoms of a disk herniation when it presses on a nerve or the spinal cord.
A pinched nerve is called radiculopathy and typically causes shooting pain, numbness or weakness. Depending on what nerve is pinched, it can cause pain in a variety of places. If you have a herniated disk in your lumbar spine, the pain might come down your leg , down your butt, over the hip and down the leg, says Dr. If your herniated disk is pinching a nerve in your cervical spine, it might cause arm pain or weakness that shoots down your shoulder or upper back.
The average amount of time it takes for a herniated disk to heal is four to six weeks, but it can get better within a few days depending on how severe the herniation was and where it occurred. The biggest factor in healing a herniated disk is time, because most often it will resolve on its own. Healing time also depends on what recovery looks like for you and what type of treatment you try. You have to fit the requirements from the physical examination and medical history. And we need to have a serious conversation about how bad the pain is bothering you and affecting your quality of life.
Surgery on the spine is serious and should be weighed accordingly. The question is, why don't these changes seen on imaging cause them pain? The oddities of back pain are likely due to the fact that a neurological healing process — not a physical one — is at work, says Dr.
As the theory goes, when a problem occurs and triggers pain, it's your nervous system that actually adapts to the pain, and that's what makes discomfort go away, says Dr. Exercise and movement may help your nervous system to make this adjustment more rapidly.
Degeneration in your spine is a natural part of aging. Contrary to what many people believe, only rarely does back pain strike while someone is lifting something heavy or performing an intensive activity. Those things are rare. Most people are doing simple tasks, such as leaning over to spit in the sink when brushing their teeth. Back pain most often results from inevitable tissue failure caused by age-related deterioration.
After all, being careful won't stop any other signs of aging, such as wrinkles or gray hair. Your experiences with back pain may have a lot to do with your individual genetic makeup. And just as some people are prone to heightened pain — which may occur in people with conditions such as fibromyalgia — some people are at the opposite end of the spectrum and less prone to pain.
Research has shown that the tendency to experience more or less back pain runs in families. For example, identical twins often have similar histories of back pain, says Dr.
This is the case even if they have completely different lives and experiences — for example, if one twin has a desk job and the other performs heavy labor in construction. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke recommends several strategies to help ease back pain when it flares up:.
While back pain may be inevitable for many people, changing attitudes about the problem could be making it worse. In the past, people used to take back pain in stride and didn't generally seek medical help. But that hasn't reduced the prevalence of pain or disability. In fact, disability from back pain has actually increased over time. In , a study ranked back pain as the sixth most burdensome condition in the United States.
Where back pain was once viewed a nuisance to work through, today, back pain stops many people in their tracks.
Many doctors are encouraging a return to the past when it comes to managing back pain, with less emphasis on intervention and more on encouraging movement. Movement seems to be the stimulus to normalize pain responses in the nervous system. Studies on animals with spinal injuries show faster pain resolution among those forced to exercise than among those allowed to move less, says Dr. Surgery may be necessary for some back problems, such as conditions that are causing progressive nerve damage or that involve structural changes that need to be corrected, according to the NINDS.
So, if you're experiencing back pain caused by normal wear and tear, the message is that in most cases you don't need to stop your life and wait to heal.
You probably know both can be painful, too — but are they the same thing? In a word: Nope. While they both affect the discs in your spine, bulging discs and herniated discs are not two terms for the same condition, explains Harvey E. Smith, MD , Penn Medicine physician and orthopaedic surgeon. Smith: Your spine is made up of bones called vertebrae and rubbery discs stacked on top of one another, forming the spinal canal.
The bundle of nerves called the spinal cord ru n down the length of the spinal canal. The discs in your spine function like shock absorbers between the vertebrae. These discs are made of two components: a softer center called nucleus pulposus surrounded by a tough elastic-like band called annulus fibrosus. The disc sags and looks like it is bulging outward. With a herniated disc, the outer covering of the disc has a hole or tear. This causes the nucleus pulposus jelly-like center of the disc to leak into the spinal canal.
Smith: As we age, our discs deteriorate and bulge downward, so bulging discs are usually caused by age-related degeneration. Because it is considered degenerative, there is usually a progressive, gradual onset of symptoms. It can cause pain in the buttocks, legs, or back. It can also affect your ability to walk.
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