Disc Injury Treatment in Yarmouth, ME

Back pain is a common condition that affects up to 80% of people during their lifetime. It’s not only a leading cause of pain but also the number one cause of disability worldwide. Low back pain is often related to the intervertebral discs that live between each vertebra. When discs become injured, the pain can be one of the most severe and disabling you can experience, especially when the result of nerve compression. To understand how we treat disc injuries at Brown Chiropractic, we need to understand the function of discs and discuss how they can be injured.

Discs, the shock absorbers of your spine, play a crucial role in spinal health by dispersing the forces placed on your spine from everyday activities. Their unique anatomy includes a fibrocartilage outer ring called the “annulus fibrosis” and a gel-like center or “nucleus pulposis.” With poor postures and repetitive injurious motions, the outer rings can wear down, making them vulnerable to injury.

Sometimes, discs are injured because of trauma like a car accident or work injury. However, many disc injuries will occur spontaneously or with little force, liking picking something up off the ground. When these injuries occur, they can seem sudden, but are typically a gradual process that progressed over years to decades. When the metaphorical “final straw” occurs, tearing the outer annulus allows the inner gel-like nucleus to migrate, resulting in herniations or bulges. In some cases, the displaced disc material can compress spinal nerves and the spinal cord, causing radiating pain.

Disc injuries typically occur in the lumbar and cervical regions of the spine. When a disc herniation or bulge pinches a nerve, it causes a “radiculopathy.” A radiculopathy is characterized by radiating pain into the associated limb and can be accompanied by numbness, tingling, and weakness. These symptoms can be alarming and quite disabling. Luckily, pinched nerves respond well to chiropractic adjustments and specific exercises designed to reduce nerve compression and speed up healing.

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

Identifying the root cause of the problem

The first step to treating disc injuries is a consultation where we get to know you and understand your symptoms, their effect on your life, and your goals for care. We then perform a comprehensive evaluation to confirm that a disc injury has occurred. This evaluation includes orthopedic and neurological testing to identify what tissues are injured or inflamed, including identifying the affected disc(s) and nerves.

Next, a chiropractic spinal analysis identifies restrictions and malalignments of the spinal segments related to your injury. Lastly, if you’re able, we perform a functional movement screen to determine abnormal postures, muscle imbalances, and dysfunctional movements that contributed to overloading and damaging the discs in the first place. All of this is designed to get to the root cause of your pain so your care can be effective and efficient.

If we identify that further testing is necessary, we can order X-rays or an MRI. Similarly, if we feel you would benefit from a collaborative approach for your back pain we can work with your PCP or refer you to specialists, including orthopedists, physiatrists, neurologists, and more.

Specific Chiropractic Care in Yarmouth, ME

The best of adjusting and myofascial release

The first goal of care for disc injuries is to provide our patients with relief and to facilitate healing. We do this by restoring motion and function to the restricted segments of your spine with an adjustment. These restrictions can intensify disc-related pain through local muscle spasms, weakness, and altered control of movement within your spine, perpetuating the problem.

When we adjust your spine, it normalizes the sliding and gliding of joints, reducing muscle tension and optimizing the biomechanics of your back. In addition to adjustments, we use myofascial release and assisted stretching to provide complete relief and further normalize spine mobility. Improved spinal mobility makes stretching and exercising more comfortable and effective for correcting back and nerve pain related to disc injury.

Modalities

For severe pain management and faster healing

Disc herniations always include some level of inflammation; inflammation is actually the first step to healing a disc injury. However, excessive inflammation slows pain relief and healing, and can cause significant nerve compression that is unresponsive to mechanical therapies. When this occurs, we have various options to reduce pain and inflammation and speed healing. These include electrical stimulation, ultrasound, and laser.

Electric stimulation sends electrical pulses through the muscles and nerves and can be used to reduce muscle spasms and pain. Ultrasound sends sound waves into tissues, increasing blood flow and speeding up tissue healing. Cold laser emits low-frequency light and, like ultrasound, increases blood flow, reduces inflammation, and stimulates cells to reproduce healing tissues faster.

During your movement screen, we will identify any abnormal postures, muscle imbalances, and movement dysfunction contributing to your back pain. Each patient receives a customized program designed around their specific needs and their goals for care. This often includes stretching protocols for the hips and strengthening for weakness in the core and sometimes muscles of the back. For disc injuries, we also typically work with proper bending and lifting mechanics, usually designed to mimic the particular work or home activity that likely contributed to the disc injury in the first place.

Mechanical Traction

Decompressing discs and nerves to reduce pain and speed up healing

Mechanical traction therapy is a specialized technique designed to address the pain and symptoms associated with disc herniations. This therapy employs a carefully controlled and gentle pulling on the spine intending to create space between the vertebrae. This alleviates pressure on the affected disc and nerve and reduces pain while restoring mobility. This therapy also promotes healing of the disc by increasing blood flow and pumping essential nutrients for healing into the disc.

Bulged Disc

Disc bulges are broad progressive degenerative changes to the disc that can be completely asymptomatic or a significant contributor to back pain. With age, our discs dehydrate, and the outer layer of fibrocartilage will stiffen. These changes and repetitive stress on the tissues can cause the disc’s outer layer to bulge out. Even when disc bulges are painless, they can still contribute to compression of nearby nerves, leading to numbness, tingling, weakness, cramping, spasms, and shooting pain. This is called stenosis, and it can affect the spinal cord and individual nerves leaving the spine.

Age is the most significant risk factor for a bulged disc, making it more common in older people than younger people. Improper lifting techniques, accumulated trauma from poor posture, obesity, genetics, or acute trauma can also lead to a bulged disc.

Slipped or Herniated Disc

A herniated disc is often referred to as a slipped disc. A disc herniates when the outer layer of fibrocartilage tears and the softer, gelatinous material on the inside protrudes out of the disc. Disc herniations occur most often between the ages of 30-50.

Certain repetitive motions or improper lifting techniques increase the risk of a slipped disc. Disc herniations can also occur from sudden traumatic events, such as a motor vehicle accident. Disc herniations can mechanically compress nerves, and inflammation from the tearing can irritate nerve roots, causing radiating pain, numbness, tingling, and even weakness in an extremity. An untreated herniated or slipped disc can lead to permanent nerve damage and should be addressed as soon as possible.

Degenerative Disc Disease

One of the most common types of disc injuries isn’t generally considered to be an acute onset problem. Degenerative disc disease is an age-related condition in which the discs of the spine wear down over time and get smaller. When this happens, the holes on the side of the spine through which nerves exit get smaller, which can put pressure on these nerves and cause symptoms; this is called foraminal stenosis.

Besides repetitive motion and wear and tear, other risk factors that accelerate its progression include being overweight/obese and smoking. Common symptoms include lower back pain, but radiating pain down into the hips and legs can also be felt depending on how much the nerves are affected.
It’s important to understand that degenerative disc disease cannot be reversed. We can, however, manage it and slow its progression. Chiropractic, spinal decompression, and exercise are fantastic treatment options that can improve range of motion, decrease pain, and increase overall function. Since the condition cannot be fully corrected, the goal becomes achieving and maintaining the highest quality of life possible. A chiropractic lifestyle can help make that a reality for you or someone you know who suffers from degenerative disc disease.

Repetitive Motion and Stress

As was mentioned earlier, disc injuries are commonly the result of a gradual process of wear and tear on the cartilage rings surrounding the nucleus. It isn’t so much the incident when the pain started that is the cause, but rather the thousands of movements before that, which slowly caused damage over time. Imagine trying to break a credit card by hand. You repetitively have to bend the card back and forth, and slowly the card starts to weaken before finally snapping.

For this reason, certain fields of work tend to have more disc injuries than others. One such example of this is hard labor jobs, such as roofers, mechanics, and laborers. These jobs require lots of bending, lifting, and twisting motions frequently throughout each shift. Putting the spine in flexion and rotation simultaneously is the primary mechanism through which disc bulges and herniations can happen. The stress and pressure placed on these discs make them vulnerable and weak over time, and a simple motion can be the final straw that starts a cascade of pain and suffering. Chiropractic adjustments can help keep your spine moving optimally, improving its adaptive ability to these repetitive motions. A strong core, proper bending habits, and lifting practices can make a huge difference.

Heavy Lifting

Lifting weights is a fantastic form of exercise that provides numerous physical and mental health benefits. However, heavy lifting also places a great deal of stress on the body, and especially on the spine. Our spine is always bearing the weight of our head plus the weight of gravity. When we add weight on top of that, we increase the load on the discs in our spine. When performing a heavy lift, intra-abdominal pressure sharply increases, which also increases pressure in the spine. If there is pre-existing weakness in the discs, then the likelihood that they will bulge or herniate drastically increases.

It’s important to remember that heavy lifting doesn’t just occur in the gym. People move furniture around their houses or move houses altogether. There are many circumstances in which lifting is necessary. Lifting improperly increases the risk of injuring your discs in the process. The best way to avoid unnecessary stress on your lower back is to always lift with your legs rather than bending at the waist and using your back.

Auto Accidents

It is important to remember that disc injuries can happen in other parts of the spine than just the lower back. The cervical spine (neck) is also a commonplace where disc injuries can occur. One common cause of disc injuries in the neck is auto accidents, especially when whiplash is involved. Whiplash occurs when the head moves violently back and forth in response to the impact of an auto accident. It damages the muscles and ligaments around the cervical spine and can even cause damage to the discs as well. Symptoms can include neck pain, arm pain, numbness, tingling, burning, or weakness.

Brown Chiropractic provides comprehensive care to help you recover and navigate the post-accident process with ease. We will work with insurance companies and attorneys alike to ensure that the process is smooth and stress-free for you, which will help maximize and accelerate your recovery.