Oh no, not another slipped disc!
Let’s get this right, discs don’t slip. If there is one way
to make an osteopath hold his head in his hands and moan a little it’s to say
‘I’ve got a slipped disc’. The discs in the spine we are talking about here are
well and truly glued and welded to the vertebrae in-between which they sit.
There is no way one of them can slip. Are we clear on that now?
So if it doesn’t slip what does it do? Like the rest of the
body, if a disc is not treated particularly well it wears out. The nice strong
ligamentous shell that encases the slightly more fluid gel like centre can
dehydrate, crack and warp. Eventually a
bulge can appear on the disc as it fails under the pressure and, on a really
bad day the disc may even herniate or burst allowing the central gel core to
leak out.
If a disc herniates you’ll know about it. The leaking gel
will press on to the nerve arising from the spine at that level and that
pressure will be made even worse as a result of the inflammatory reaction that
occurs around the disc. Inflammation
means swelling and swelling in a confined space right next to a nerve is not
good news. Pressure on the nerve produces intense pain that normal pain killers
won’t touch along with pins and needles, numbness and weakness along the path
of the nerve. This most commonly occurs
in the bottom of the back and affects the leg on one side but it can also
happen in the neck and affect an arm.
If it gets to the herniated disc stage often surgery is the
only way forward. Better to catch the
problem at the slightly warn out bulging disc stage so you don’t have to go
down that route. Bulging discs are not
uncommon. Many folk with have them and not know that they are there but
eventually, a bit of extra stain or pressure on the spine will push things over
the edge. There might be localised pain around the area and protective muscle
spasm. The muscle spasm itself can be really very painful. There may also be signs of the nerve pinching
if the bulge is big enough to press on a nerve root, so the pins and needles
and numbness may occur. This is your body sending you a warning. Treat this the
right way and it won’t necessarily deteriorate into the full grown disc
herniation.
The way forward is to create space. The disc has essentially
collapsed, usually to one side. It acts
like a deformed balloon, as the bulge appears the structure collapses to the
side of the bulge so compressing everything on that side, nerves included. The
natural tendency for the body is often to lean to the opposite side in an
attempt to take pressure off the bulging side. The muscles all around the area
want to hold on tight in an attempt to protect the area so spasm sets in. The
problem with spasm is that it compresses things together, which is the opposite
of what you really need. We’re looking
for space, to decompress the disc and give it room to reduce the pressure on
the nerves.
Creating space by stretching and reducing the muscle spasm
is the way forward. And no, we won’t be
following that up by ‘putting the disc back in place’. If it never came out in the first place it
won’t need putting back in!
