Chronic pain syndrome can result from having ongoing pain, causing depression, anxiety, and trouble coping with daily life. Symptoms caused by long-term nerve root compression include loss of agility, strength, or sensation in one or both legs and feet.
What Increases Your Risk Risk factors are things that increase your risk of having a herniated disc. Risk factors that you cannot change Getting older. Being male. Having a history of back injury, previous herniated disc, or back surgery. Risk factors that you can change Your job or other activities.
These may include: Long periods of sitting. Lifting or pulling heavy objects. Frequent bending or twisting of the back. Heavy physical exertion. Repetitive motions. Exposure to constant vibration such as driving.
Not exercising regularly, doing strenuous exercise for a long time, or starting to exercise too strenuously after a long period of inactivity. Nicotine and other toxins from smoking can keep spinal discs from absorbing all the nutrients they need from the blood, making disc injury more likely.
Smoking also increases your sensitivity to pain. Being overweight. Carrying extra body weight especially in the stomach area may put additional strain on the lower back, although this hasn't been proved. But being overweight often also means being in poor physical condition, with weaker muscles and less flexibility.
These can lead to low back pain. When To Call Call or other emergency services immediately if: An injury causes numbness or weakness in one or both legs. Call your doctor now if: You have a new loss of bowel or bladder control. Leg pain is accompanied by persistent weakness, tingling, or numbness in any part of the leg from the buttock to the ankle or foot.
Leg pain or intermittent weakness, tingling, or numbness lasts longer than 1 week despite home treatment. You have back pain that either won't go away or builds in intensity over a few weeks. A back injury is work-related, and symptoms don't improve in 2 to 3 days. Back pain is accompanied by pain during urination or blood in the urine.
You have back pain that is worse when you are resting than when you are active. You notice a gradual increase in problems with bowel or bladder control. Watchful waiting Watchful waiting is a wait-and-see approach.
If you have pain, numbness, or tingling in one leg that gets worse with sitting, standing, or walking without any obvious leg weakness : You may try a brief period of bed rest—usually no more than 1 to 2 days—then gradually begin activities if the pain is manageable. Take short walks. Avoid movements and positions that increase pain or numbness.
Who to see For diagnosis and nonsurgical treatment of a herniated disc, you may see: A family medicine doctor. An internist.
A chiropractor. A physical therapist. A physiatrist a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation. A rheumatologist. A neurologist. For diagnosis and surgical treatment of a herniated disc, specialists include: A neurosurgeon. An orthopedic surgeon. Exams and Tests Your doctor will do a medical history and physical exam. Other tests Other tests, such as blood tests, may be done to rule out other conditions.
The following tests aren't used as often as an MRI or a CT scan, but they may give your doctor more information: An electromyogram and nerve conduction test may be done in some cases for people who have signs of prolonged pressure on a nerve root. Discography can help diagnose disc problems but is rarely used. A nerve block may show which nerve is causing a problem. Treatment Overview Your doctor may recommend a short period of rest or reduced activity followed by a gradual increase in activity.
So most of the time nonsurgical treatment is tried first, including: Heat or ice, exercise, and other steps at home to help with pain and make your back stronger. For more information, see Home Treatment. Physical therapy. For more information, see Other Treatment. Pain medicine. For more information, see Medications.
Prevention To help prevent low back pain or a herniated disc: Stay at a healthy body weight. Exercise regularly. Quit smoking. Nicotine can harm the discs in your back, because it lowers the ability of the discs to absorb the nutrients they need to stay healthy. And it may cause them to become dry and brittle. Use proper lifting techniques. Think about your posture. Slumping or slouching alone may not cause low back pain.
But after the back has been strained or injured, bad posture can make pain worse. Use good posture while standing or walking. Protect your back while sitting. Try putting a small pillow or rolled towel between your back and the chair. Keep your back in the neutral position while sleeping. Place a pillow between your knees when sleeping on your side.
Self-Care To reduce pain The following steps may help to reduce pain: Relax. Find a comfortable position for rest. You might prefer lying on the floor or a medium-firm bed with a small pillow under your head and another under your knees. Or you can try lying on your side with a pillow between your knees. Don't stay in one position for too long. Take a short walk 10 to 20 minutes on a level surface no slopes, hills, or stairs every 2 to 3 hours.
Walk only distances you can manage without pain, especially leg pain. Take pain medicine if needed. These medicines usually work best if you take them on a regular schedule instead of waiting until the pain gets worse.
Try heat or ice. There is not strong evidence that either heat or ice will help, but you can try them to see if they help you. You may also want to try switching between heat and cold.
You can try: A heating pad on a low or medium setting for 15 to 20 minutes every 2 to 3 hours. A warm shower in place of one session with the heating pad. Single-use heat wraps that last up to 8 hours. An ice pack for 10 to 15 minutes every 2 to 3 hours. You can use an ice pack or a bag of frozen vegetables wrapped in a thin towel. To strengthen your back Keep active and do exercises, as recommended by your doctor or physical therapist, to help you return to your usual level of activity.
Fitness: Increasing Core Stability. Medicines Although medicine doesn't cure a herniated disc, it may reduce inflammation and pain and allow you to begin an exercise program that can strengthen your stomach and back muscles. Muscle relaxants. Surgery Surgery is considered if the following conditions are present: You have leg pain that hasn't improved with at least 6 weeks of nonsurgical treatment, and your symptoms are bad enough to interfere with normal activities and work and to require strong pain medicine.
You have weakness, loss of motion, or abnormal sensitivity. Tests show that your herniated disc can be treated surgically. Surgery choices Discectomy. This may be the most effective type of surgery for people who have tried nonsurgical treatment without success and who have severe, disabling leg pain. Percutaneous discectomy Laminotomy and laminectomy Experimental procedures A number of technologies using small incisions or injections for destroying the disc are used by some surgeons.
Other Treatment You can try other treatments besides medicine and surgery, including: Chronic pain management programs. The jelly is going to squirt out of it — just like the nucleus pulposus would from your actual disk in your spine. Movement, injury, pressure, age or just plain bad luck can cause the nucleus pulposus to push through the annulus fibrosis — just like the inside of a jelly donut would if you pressed down on it.
A herniated disk could also be caused by disk degeneration, genetics or a combination. 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. Back to Health A to Z. A slipped disc is when a soft cushion of tissue between the bones in your spine pushes out. It's painful if it presses on nerves. It usually gets better slowly with rest, gentle exercise and painkillers.
Not all slipped discs cause symptoms. Many people will never know they have slipped a disc. Sometimes the pain may be a result of an injury such as a sprain or strain , but often there's no obvious reason.
Back pain is rarely caused by anything serious. If the pain is very bad, you may need to rest at first. But start gentle exercise as soon as you can — it'll help you get better faster. The type of exercise is not important, just gradually increase your activity level. Alternate painkillers such as ibuprofen and paracetamol.
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