Providing Expert Treatments forHerniated Discs
Disc Herniation
The discs of the spine, also known as intervertebral discs are what separate the bones (vertebrae) of the spine. When degenerated or injured, discs can bulge and herniate. This can put direct pressure on spinal nerves, the spinal cord, and nerves in the outer disc. The resulting pressure on the nerves and/or the spinal cord can cause numbness/tingling, weakness, and neck pain, upper back pain, shoulder pain, arm pain, hand pain, low back pain, hip pain, groin pain, leg pain, and foot pain. Denver Chiropractor, Broadway Chiropractic Center has been helping people with disc herniations avoid surgery for decades, and we are here to help you.
How does this happen?
Disc herniations commonly happen in trauma or in degenerating discs. Intervertebral disc lose a lot of their blood supply when we are in our early twenties. The discs rely upon normal motion of the spine which imbibes nutrients or “hydrates” the disc so they remain thick and healthy. If this does not occur, the disc will start to dehydrate, degenerate, and collapse. As the disc breaks down it becomes weaker and more susceptible to injury. Cracks can form in the disc and the “jelly” in the middle of the disc pushes outward.
Types of disc injury
Disc injuries can include bulges or swelling of the disc and herniations or cracking and tearing of the disc. There are several varying degrees of severity of disc herniations. The disc can have a small amount of tearing all the way to a complete rupture of its soft gelatinous content also known as herniated nucleus pulposus.
How we can help
Most of the time chiropractic for disc herniations is successful and you can be taken care of conservatively avoiding spine surgery. The first thing that we do at Broadway Chiropractic in Denver is determine through examination and imaging which disc or discs are involved and how severe the injury. Then, we determine if you are a candidate for conservative care. If so, we gently start restoring normal motion back in the spine so that we can start to "rehydrate" the disc and take stress off of the injured area. As the disc starts to heal and pressure comes off of the nerves, the pain and/ or numbness can subside. We do this with some combination of gentle chiropractic techniques, decompression therapy, and exercises/stretches. Our goal is to get you out of pain now while also addressing the underlying cause of your disc herniation, so that this doesn’t happen to you again.
If you are suffering with a disc herniation and searching for a Denver chiropractor and want to get rid of the pain so you can sleep, work, walk, sit pain free, ski, golf, and play with your kids again, call us (303) 733-3522.