Top 5 Ways To Help A Disc Problem Without Surgery

Are you suffering from a disc problem in you lower back? Have you been told, or you think that you might have a herniated disc, a bulging disc, or a slipped disc? I’m going to cover with you, the top five things that you can do to help a herniated disc, or some sort of disc problem without surgery.

Number One: Keep Active

A lot of people think that resting the disc will allow it to go away and heal and get better. To a degree that is true. But when I say keep active, there is a disclaimer in that. You want to still do your normal activities, your day-to-day things that you have to do to take care of yourself. You want to ideally go to work and take care of your life. But you want to avoid doing activities that aggravate your back problem. You don’t want your disk to get more flared up.

More extreme activities like going running, exercising, doing heavy housework, doing things that require heavy lifting, are things that you want to avoid, to preserve your disk and not allow it to get more injured. Now, there are some situations, where you have to do some things that will aggravate your back, and in those scenarios, you want to get some help.

You want to see if you can pay somebody to help you, or put it off as long as you can, so that you can save your back problem. But the bottom line is, you need to keep moving because discs are best suited to heal if they get a little bit of controlled motion that does not irritate the disk more.

Number Two: Take Breaks

The second way you can help your disk, so that you can avoid surgery, is related to the first, you need to take breaks. There might be situations where you need to be on your feet for a while, or you just have to do that activity that begins to bother your back eventually. What you should do, in those scenarios, is just take a break. See how much activity you can tolerate, lets say 10-15 minutes, maybe longer. Then take a 5 to 10-minute break.

You have to play around with the times to see what best fits your scenario. What you should find is that, as your disc is healing over the course of weeks and months, – it does take a while – you will be able to tolerate more activity and require shorter rest breaks.

But if you pace yourself like this, you will be able to still finish some of the work that you have to do, such as the self-care things you have to do like take care of your house, do your laundry, make your bed, take a shower, cook, clean, take care of the home, take care of family.

If you pace yourself by taking breaks and get help from family, you should put yourself in a situation where your disc can heal so that you can avoid surgery.

Number Three: Wearing A Back Brace

The third way you can help your disc is by wearing a back brace. Now, let me caution you on this. This is not a good long-term solution, but it’s a good short-term solution. I’m talking about the braces that you can get just about any store like a Walmart or Walgreens. You can find them online as well.

They are usually stretchable material that wrap around your waist, and they give your back support. There are some fancy ones out there that have suspender like structures to them, or they have special ties that can zip down. And they have all kinds of costs associated with them. Some are very cheap, some are very high end. It just depends on what you feel like you need. What tends to happen with those braces is the higher end ones do offer more support, they are also made out of better materials that they last longer.

When I see clients here in the clinic and we are looking to help them with this problem and avoid surgery. I tell them to get the lowest priced one because hopefully you are not going to be using this very long. You don’t want to rely on the brace.

Now the way you put on the brace is snugly, firmly, but it shouldn’t impede with your breathing. You should be able to talk fine, and you can wear it under your clothes. If you feel comfortable. You decide how you want to wear it, whether it’s over your clothes or under your clothes.

Either way, understand that the brace is not going to be comfortable for you, you are going to get sweaty, especially if it’s hot outside. If you are living in more warm weather, you want to wash that brace to keep your skin healthy as well, so that you can avoid any sort of rashes or infections.

The bottom line with this brace is, you don’t want to wear it 24/7, or even all day while you are up and awake. You want to have periods of time where you challenge your body, your disk, as well as your back your muscles that support your back, so that you can eventually wean off the brace. Because what the brace is doing is it’s giving you the support in your spine, and your disk that your muscles aren’t able to provide.

But our bodies are very smart, and once the muscles that are supposed to be doing the work of the brace, detect that they have help from the brace, they start to relax and don’t work. If this is going on for days and weeks on end, those muscles that are relaxing start to get very, very weak and it puts you in a situation where you are reliant on the brace, and it’s very difficult to regain that strength that you have lost over weeks and months.

If you are going to use the brace, use it for short periods of time. I’m talking like a day or two at a time, even a few hours at a time, take it off and put it back on throughout the same day in relation to the activities that you are doing. For instance, if you know that you are going to be on your feet a lot because you are going to go to the grocery store and that tends to bother your back. That’s an activity that might be a little too much for you. Put the back brace on for that trip, and of course, keep it on all the way until those groceries are put away. Because that can be a little bit of effort on your body as well.

When you get to a point where you are able to relax, then take the brace off so that you are not wearing it continuously, nonstop throughout the day. Use a back brace to help you avoid making your disc problem worse.

Number Four: Using Offloading Devices

The fourth way is by using offloading devices. The most common is in inversion table. This is not a long term solution either, much like the brace. It’s a similar idea to the brace it’s taking pressure off and avoid aggravating motions to the disk. But when you hang upside down on an inversion table, as long as you are doing it properly, and relaxing the muscles around your back, and trying to hang out there as long as you can, you are going to take pressure off the disk, which is usually beneficial for a disc.

Most people can’t hang upside down for more than a few minutes at a time, even a minute can be very challenging. You usually have to work up your tolerance. Now it can have some helpful benefits for the disc. The problem with this is that it’s not enough time most of the time. If you are offloading, through flipping yourself upside down on an inversion table, for a few minutes at a time several times a day. Cumulative if you get 10 or 15 minutes, even if you had 30 minutes upside-down time or more. It’s not going to be as beneficial compared to regaining the strength and fixing all the mechanics that an expert might help you out with.

It’s a short-term solution, you can’t do it for long. Gaining strength is a big, and very important part of helping a disc problem. An inversion tables just don’t do that for you. I’ve had some clients that do exercises on an inversion table. I think that that’s cool, but you just have to be careful about how the exercises are done. I’ll get into that here in a bit.

But the fourth way, like I said, is to hang upside down, and take pressure off of your disk. You just have to manage how you do that and be safe about it.

Number Five: Talking To A Specialist

The fifth way to making sure that this problem gets better without having surgery, is to talk to a specialist like myself. A specialist, physical therapist, or somebody that you see best fit that is isn’t going to push you to go get a surgery right away. What we know is that in about 9 out of 10 disc problems, they can heal without surgery.

Now, if you have pain down your leg, and weakness associated with it and you have lost tons of muscle in that leg, please go talk to a surgeon right away, make sure that they do some sort of imaging on you, and you get checked out properly. Most of the time, if you are that severe, then you might need a surgery. But if you haven’t had loss of muscle and your leg still works decently fine, even though it hurts a lot, in your back or even down into your leg, you might still have an excellent chance at rehabilitating this disc problem and getting the disc problem healed so that it’s not hurting you anymore without surgery.

Talking to a specialist and getting on a control plan, making sure that you have the right accountability, making sure that you are talking to somebody who is telling you are on the right track, or you’re way off, or helps you readjust your plan so that you can get on the right track is invaluable. You are better off putting a little bit of time and effort into working with a specialist that can help you to fix this problem rather than suffering for years and potentially making this disc problem worse and then having to get a surgery anyway. I encourage you to talk to an expert.

Let me tell you about a couple of things that I did not put on this list because they need to be done properly. You need some expert help to make sure that these things are done right.

Number 1: Exercise

Exercise is definitely a good thing for disc problems. The issue that I have, which is the reason why I’m not telling you to go do exercise right away, is because certain exercises will harm a disc problem, and others will make it worse. Depending on how your disc problem presents, if there’s any sort of nerve impingement. Because discs can be affected in different ways, you can have discs that are flattened out, you can have disc herniated, the direction of the herniation can be a factor as well. All that will dictate what the best exercise is for you. Which is why it is so important to get a customized plan on what exercises to do.

Some people will go YouTube and look up exercises and stretches and they have had some success. In that case, congratulations, I’m glad that you’re on the right track. But if you are having trouble with that, don’t give up on exercise yet, you just might need some help and guidance on finding the proper exercises to make sure that your back problem, your disc injury is headed in the right direction.

Number 2: Pain Medication

The second one that didn’t make the list here is medications. I’d rather you don’t take medications hands down. I want to help people avoid medications, avoid injections which is medication that’s injected directly into a body part, and of course avoid surgery. But medications for pain can be used in the short term.

The problem with medications is, of course, some of the prescription strength medications, you have to watch out, and make sure that your doctor is on point with all your other medications you’re taking. Have a plan to get off them eventually. And if you’re taking over the counter medications, be very careful, I would still consult with your doctor to make sure that you have a plan to eventually stop taking them.

It is not a good idea to rely on pain medications day in and day out, or even weekly, or monthly, without having some natural plan to fix your disc problem. The truth is that medications do not fix disc problems. They just take the pain away, they mask the pain symptoms so that you don’t feel it. They also stop the inflammation process. Some of these pain medications like ibuprofen, for instance, is an anti-inflammatory pain medication. What we know about inflammation is that it’s a very necessary part of healing. It’s the first step in healing. And if you are taking medications to stop the first step of healing, to stop inflammation because it’s an anti-inflammatory medication, then you are technically stopping the healing process from beginning.

That might be okay in the short term, especially if you just need to get through a few days, or a week or two of life, before you can get some help. If your doctor’s appointment isn’t for two weeks or something that might be okay. There are certain times where it’s appropriate to rely on pain medication for just a short time, so that you can get to the plan that’s going to help you fix the problem for the long term.

Another time where you may want to possibly take pain medications is if your mood is not the greatest. You know, if you have loved ones around and you are being a little grumpy, unintentionally of course, because you can’t sleep all night because of your back problem. Or you just aren’t the nicest during the day because you can’t move, you are frustrated that you can’t go do that thing that you’ve been wanting to do, because your back hurts every time you do it. I cases like this, I think it’s completely normal to be in that situation and taking a little bit of pain medications.

During that time, it might be okay, as long as your doctor is okay with it and you don’t have any side effects with it. But understand that it is not making your muscles stronger, it’s technically not healing your disc, it’s just taking the pain away and stopping the inflammation process, which is good in the short term bad in the long term. So be wise when using pain medications.

I would not tell you to start using them right away and it’s not even my place. I’m a physical therapist, not a Doctor of Medicine, please, please go talk to your physician who is a specialist in medicine.

If you’re thinking about using medication, that’s potentially a dangerous thing. There are lots of side effects and certain organs can be affected long term even in the short term. We know that with ibuprofen, it can tear up your stomach if it’s consistently used for several weeks at a time. So just please be careful with using medications. But I bring it up to you as to give you the truth to give you all the information that I can about all these reasons to use medication. So that you can make the best decisions for your health today.

I hope this list benefited you. I hope that you can find something useful in it, at the very least I hope that you learn something that you can pass on to somebody else. If you feel like you want to talk to us more about the possibility of hiring us to help you with your disc problem, we’d love to talk you can reach us at 915-503-1314. Or find the button right around here that says, apply for a discovery visit.

A discovery visit is a 20-minute visit where you can talk directly with the specialist physical therapists, you can do this in person or online through a video call. Or you can even talk to us over the phone if you like. Just to learn more about your specific situation. Now what we’ll do is we’ll talk through your problem, we’ll get all the details about when it started, how long it’s been there, how it’s affecting you, if you are here in person will check you out by hand with certain tests that we do to find dis problems and the severity of them.

Then we’ll talk about whether or not we can help you and begin to formulate a plan on helping you if we can.

I hope that we can be a part of your successful recovery story really soon. Have the best day. Bye