Can A Disc Herniation Heal Naturally

Can a disc herniation heal on its own? The answer is yes! And the truth about this is not many people in the medical profession would agree, because they’re outdated on their knowledge about how disc herniations can heal.

I’m Dr. David specialist physical therapist at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy. And this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile, while avoiding unnecessary surgery, injections, and medications. Up until the mid 2000s, we didn’t have much medical research that supported that discs in the lower back can heal naturally without surgery.

More research has been gradually coming out, especially research that’s comparing people that had surgery on their discs and their lower back, compared to people that had disc injuries in the lower back and didn’t have surgery.

The coolest thing about this is that both groups get better the same amount, which puts us in a difficult situation, because why would you jump into a disc surgery for your lower back. If you haven’t tried to treat the problem naturally yet, the research is finally catching up in the medical field.

If you’ve been to the doctor for a disc problem, what they’ll tell you oftentimes is that you can’t get an MRI right away these days. Insurances won’t pay for an MRI because the insurances are keeping track of the medical research probably a bit more than your healthcare provider. So insurances know that if you get an MRI, you’re way more likely to be recommended have to have a surgery on your disc in your back.

But they know also that there’s a good possibility that you can recover from your back problem and heal your disk without having surgery. So what insurance companies have done is they say you can have an MRI until you’ve done conservative treatment, which is usually physical therapy first, and then if that fails, then they’ll allow you to start going the surgical route which begins with an MRI injections, and eventually a surgery if things just don’t improve.

But you might ask the question, Why are doctors and surgeons and other health care providers and even physical therapists still recommending that if you have a disc herniation, that you go get surgery?

Well, the fact is, is most people just don’t keep up with research after they’ve left school, if you’re seeing a healthcare provider who went to school in the early 2000s, or earlier, even into the 2010s, because research usually takes 10 years to catch up into normal practice. They’re telling you what they learned in school, which was that at that time, discs didn’t heal. But we do have more research showing that discs have the ability to put down scar tissue and restabilized the spine, in other words, to get strong again, to do their job to connect the bones together well and put space between the bones of the spine.

Now, of course, we don’t have a lot of research on this. And there’s certain circumstances we’re here in the clinic, we’re telling people that are coming in low hoping to have their spine heal naturally that it’s a little too far gone there. There’s other problems that are causing issues in the spine, and maybe a surgery is right for them.

But for most people, they can get away without having surgery by doing conservative treatment, which is physical therapy related stuff. Now let’s talk about that part. Because what isn’t studied too well and the research is what exactly needs to be done. Non surgically in order to heal a disc properly.

There are three main categories that we look at here in the clinic, the joints, the muscles, and posture, that which is a relationship kind of combination of the joints and muscles and how they work together.

If the joints in the spine are not all moving properly, oftentimes people with disc issues, there’s some joints that are stuck, which are forcing other joints around the spine to move extra and that’s usually where the disc herniation happens where the spine moves extra, then it’s going to mess up the mechanics, the way that all the joints and all the bones move together in the spine. And that’s going to set people up for back pain and of course it is herniation muscles is the next most common problem.

If the muscles are out of balance or there’s some muscles that are just very overdeveloped very overuse, people tend to be more back muscle dominant whenever they have disc herniations those back muscles cause a lot of compression through the spine, he can compress the discs and all the other joints and all the other stuff back there nerves in the spine getting stronger and other nearby muscle groups that take pressure off the back muscles.

 The two most common are the back of the abdominal muscles and the glute muscles right under the back muscles. If strength is achieved, more strength is achieved in those muscle groups. It typically allows the back muscles to relax more which takes pressure off the spine and the discs in the spine so that the discs have a chance at healing. And then the third factor that we see that contributes to a back problem is posture, and it’s not what you think, and I’ll just give you a quick tip right now.

Typical posture, people think that they need to stick out their chest and stand up taller and that that will fix their back problem but just Try right now if you sit up a little bit taller, don’t your back muscles fire more, I mean, if you stick out your chest, those muscles that are along the sides of your spine will contract and work more.

So this is actually backwards thinking, you’ve got to figure out what posture works for you in which means you might need guidance from a specialist physical therapist, so that you deactivate the back muscles, because they’re likely causing too much pressure on your discs, and all the other stuff in your back that could be causing pain as well, just to make sure that you do have a disc problem. And it’s not something else like a muscle spasm or arthritis, or possibly have a combination of things.

But I want to give you some signs and symptoms about disc problems so that you know that it’s likely going to be a disc issue. The first common sign of somebody with a disc problem is pain that kind of goes across the back, it’s not really just in one spot. Like if some people that especially with arthritis will say it hurts in one spot and kind of maybe it moves around, but it’s typically a spot that they can put their finger on.

When it comes to a disc issue. The discs are so deep in the spine, that it’s a bit harder to locate with a finger exactly where it hurts, it’s more diffused, it’s spread out along the back. And typically people will say that there’s a band of discomfort or tension or pain in the lower back. And that’s really consistent with a back a disc herniation in the lower back.

The second most common sign that we see in people that have disc herniations is very tight back muscles, people will often say my back’s always tight, as soon as I’m on my feet for too long, my back starts to tighten up.

Or if they do exercise, the first thing that begins to bother them, especially with weights is that is their back, it starts to tighten up even just doing yard work around the house pulling the weeds can set off the back and it tightens up and people feel like they need to just sit or lie down to allow it to recover before they can get up and do things.

Again. This sign is important because it tells us that you likely have an over dominance in those back muscles. And that’s compressing your discs in your spine. Let me give you one more sign. The third sign of a disc problem. This is in more severe cases is pinched nerves.

Because the discs have the ability to act like springs, they can be compressed, and then they can come back up. If they’re chronically compressed, then the nerves that come on the sides can get compressed as well. And they can pinch a nerve and send pain down the leg. So there could be sciatica problems either on the front, on the outside of the leg and the hip area.

Sometimes in the back, it could be in the bud area and down the back of the knee. And in some severe cases, it’ll be all the way down into the ankle and foot. If you’ve got a combined back pain problem, maybe you got that band, you’ve also got those tight muscles in your back and then you’ve got a nerve issue as well some pain that’s going down into the leg, then it’s highly likely that you have a disc problem and you needed to get some pressure off that disc.

And it doesn’t mean that you need surgery, it means that you need to get to the right healthcare professional begin to do the right movements and exercises so that you can get relief for your disc problem and begin to heal it naturally.

Now, the intent of this video is just to educate you on the signs and symptoms and what the research is out there for disc problems. If you’re looking for professional help for your disc issue in your back, and you think that we might be able to help you out we’d love to check you out. I’d like to invite you to apply for a free discovery visit with us what a discovery visit is it’s a 20 minute visit with a specialist physical therapist where we get to sit down and talk with you and listen to your story about your disc issue.

Want to hear about how it began and what it’s like today, and then put our hands on your body so that we can figure out where the main problems are, we take a holistic view of the body, so we have to check out a few different body parts. To give you a diagnosis.

Once we have the diagnosis and the discovery visit, then we’ll let you ask all the questions that you need so that you can walk out of the appointment with us understanding what’s going on in simple terms, so that you have all the information that you need to make the best decision moving forward about your disk issuing your back.

All you got to do is scroll down a bit here and find the button that says apply for a free discovery visit and a formal pop up there. Leave us your details. And then one of my staff will call you back as fast as they can so they can begin to tell you the next steps about getting a discovery visit with us. I hope that we can be a part of your success to a real soon. Bye