Nine out of ten individuals with a herniated disc can heal their condition through non-invasive procedures. If you want to explore conservative options for recovery, chiropractic care is an excellent place to start. A chiropractor can help you heal naturally and relieve your pain.
To treat a herniated disc, your chiropractor will develop a treatment plan that may include spinal manipulation—also known as adjustments—and other chiropractic techniques to help ease your herniated disc symptoms.
It will depend on the severity of the issues as well as whether or not the chiropractor has found additional problems. Typically, a disc protrusion can take up to three months to repair. In most cases, you may be seeing your chiropractor longer than that.
Chiropractic care will not reverse the herniation (only surgery can do that), but it can eliminate your painful symptoms so that surgery, drugs, and other treatment options become unnecessary.
Disc herniations are a common condition that Chiropractors treat in practice. If you choose to see a Chiropractor, they will be able to provide appropriate recommendations to reduce pain and get you moving, feeling, and functioning better overall.
Physical therapy, exercise and gentle stretching to help relieve pressure on the nerve root. Ice and heat therapy for pain relief. Manipulation (such as chiropractic manipulation) Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, naproxen or COX-2 inhibitors for pain relief.
Deep Tissue Massage: There are more than 100 types of massage, but deep tissue massage is an ideal option if you have a herniated disc because it uses a great deal of pressure to relieve deep muscle tension and spasms, which develop to prevent muscle motion at the affected area.
Treatment with rest, pain medication, spinal injections, and physical therapy is the first step to recovery. Most people improve in 6 weeks and return to normal activity. If symptoms continue, surgery may be recommended.
Most of the time, pain associated with a herniated disc goes away on its own over a period of weeks or months and does not cause permanent damage to the spine or nerves. A herniated disc can occur in any part of the spine, but it is most common in the lower back (the lumbar spine) and the neck (the cervical spine).
The good news is that the vast majority of herniated discs can be treated without surgery using manual therapy and exercise or with IDD Therapy disc treatment.
Chiropractic care and physiotherapy are both safe and effective treatments for back pain. Discuss your concerns with a healthcare professional for referral for appropriate therapy options. In some cases, incorporating both therapies can maximize benefits and provide both immediate relief and long-term gains.
Skip movements that involve significant axial loading on the lower back, such as squats and leg presses. Avoid toe-touches, sit-ups, and yoga poses that worsen the pain and lead to significant bending of the 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.
The pain from a herniated disc usually is worse when you are active and gets better when you are resting. Coughing, sneezing, sitting, driving, and bending forward may make the pain worse. The pain gets worse when you make these movements because there is more pressure on the nerve.
The first traditional treatment for a herniated disc is often physical therapy to see if the pain and symptoms go away. If that doesn't work, the next step is often a high dose steroid epidural injection. If that doesn't get it done, surgery is often offered.
Applying heat and/or cold therapy to the lower back can alleviate muscle tension that is commonly present with a lumbar herniated disc. Heat helps loosen the muscle tightness that causes spasms, increases blood flow, and improves elasticity of connective tissue.
The optimal sleeping position for a herniated disc is on your back. Lying on your back keeps your spine in a neutral position so you have less chance of pinching the nerve. For added comfort, nestle a small pillow or rolled-up towel under your knees and lower back.
Sokunbi notes, “and sometimes don't have the ability to heal completely.” Most often, herniated discs in healthy patients heal quickly. However, nerve compression bad enough to cause radiculopathy—pain radiating down the nerve to an arm or leg—may take longer to get better, says Dr. Butler.
Physiotherapy is recommended for the treatment of herniated or bulging discs to assist patients to manage their pain and get them moving again. Often in physical therapy, patients will be introduced to an exercise program designed for each injured region.
One of the best treatments for the symptoms of a herniated disc is stretching exercises. By gently stretching the muscles in the back, their flexibility is improved, helping them stabilize the disc herniation area. Overall endurance and circulation are also improved with herniated disc exercises, and symptoms improve.
According to research cited by Harvard Health, about 10 percent of patients with herniated disc issues require surgery after six weeks. Similar research suggests that 90 percent of the time, surgery is not necessary for a herniated disc.
Non-surgical Treatments for Herniated Discs
Other non-surgical treatments for a herniated disc include: Cortisone injections are injected into the area around the spinal nerves. Muscle relaxers to relieve spasms. Physical therapy in the form of stretches and exercises designed to minimize pain.
Compared with a bulging disk, a herniated disk is more likely to cause pain because it generally protrudes farther and is more likely to irritate nerve roots. The irritation can be from compression of the nerve or, much more commonly, the herniation causes a painful inflammation of the nerve root.
It is not possible to feel a herniated disc with your hand. The intervertebral disc is much too far forward in your body for it to push that far out to feel it. If this were the case, this would mean that you could poke your spinal cord with your finger, which also isn't possible… and would be very bad if you could.