Lumbar Disc Herniation and Lumbar Disc Disease - Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Lumbar Disc conditions can be some of the most difficult health conditions a person could suffer with. Not only do they cause quite a bit of pain, they also tend to cause a great deal of disability.

This article will discuss what a lumbar disc is, the most common conditions that can develop, symptoms related to it, and the most common treatments recommended if you have a lumbar disc condition develop.

A lumbar disc is a spinal disc located in the lower back. The spinal discs are like cushions that separate each set of bones in the spine. They are incredibly important, because not only do they act as shock absorbers when you move, they prevent the bones from rubbing together, which would be incredibly painful.

Each disc is made up of a strong outer covering (called the annulus), and a soft jelly center (called the nucleus). For lack of a better comparison, they look a lot like a jelly doughnut with the way they’re put together.

The two most common conditions that can occur with a lumbar disc are a ruptured lumbar disc and lumbar disc disease. Let’s discuss both conditions, and then we’ll discuss symptoms and treatments, because they’re very similar for both conditions.

A ruptured lumbar disc occurs when the outer covering of the disc becomes weak and tears, causing the jelly in the center of the disc to start to shift into the weak area. This creates a bulge in the disc, which is where this condition gets its most common name, a bulging disc.

This condition is also typically referred to as a herniated disc or a slipped disc. This condition can be extremely painful because the nerves of the spine are located immediately behind the spinal discs, and when a disc bulges, it tends to apply pressure on one of these nerves.

The nerves of the spine are very sensitive, and will cause a person to experience severe pain. What’s even more important, though, is that these nerves control everything in the body, so whatever the affected nerve controls will also begin to malfunction.

I’ll go into further detail about the symptoms this can cause in just a minute, but let’s first discuss what lumbar disc disease is, because the symptoms are very similar.

Lumbar disc disease occurs when the jelly in the center of the disc dehydrates (loses water). This tends to occur with age and overuse of the discs. The real seriousness of this condition is that the disc will become shorter when this condition occurs, which also applies pressure to the nerves.

The symptoms that occur with lumbar disc conditions will include low back pain, pain in the hips and legs, weakness in the legs, numbness in the feet, sciatic pain (pain shooting down the leg), as well as bowel and bladder problems.

Many people ask how they can know the difference between a herniated lumbar disc and lumbar disc disease, since the symptoms are so similar. Lumbar disc disease is actually a type of arthritis in the back, so one of the key features of this condition is that the symptoms will tend to be worse when you first get up in the morning.

Just like with any type of arthritis, when you’ve been still for a long period of time (such as when sleeping), the affected area becomes stiff and aggravated. Once you move for a short period, and loosen the area up, it tends to feel better.

With a ruptured lumbar disc, this is not the case. The symptoms will tend to get worse with certain activities, or it will be constant throughout the day.

The cause of these conditions is also very different. Usually a bulging disc in the lower back will occur with some type of trauma (such as a car accident or lifting something heavy), and it is usually easy to pinpoint some activity that started the pain.

Because lumbar disc disease is a type of arthritis, it usually develops slowly over a period of years. The symptoms will usually come on gradually over a period of time, and it is difficult to define a specific event that caused the pain to begin.

With any lumbar disc condition, the treatments available are very similar. Most physicians will recommend medications (usually muscle relaxers and pain relievers), physical therapy, pain injections (such as cortisone and epidurals), and surgery as a last resort.

However, the success rates of these treatments are not very high. The reason for this is because they all are designed to numb the affected nerves, which sounds good on the surface, but this is only a temporary solution because they are not doing anything to actually heal the source of the pain which is the disc condition.

There are other treatments that I have found to be more effective with lumbar disc conditions, but in all actuality, it’s a combination of treatments that are necessary to actually heal an injured disc, no matter what the condition is.

If you would like to learn more about the most effective treatments available for lumbar disc conditions, as well as the combination of treatments that I have found to be the most successful, you can click here (herniated lower back disc) for the full details.

Did you find this article helpful? Here are some other related articles and resources you may also find useful:

• Here is a list of the best resources I've found for Bulging Disc / Herniated Disc relief
• Lumbar Disc Disease and Protruding Disc in the Lower Back - Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments for Relief
• Lumbar Disc Herniation and Lumbar Disc Disease - Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments
• Ruptured Lumbar Disc – Problems That Can Occur and What to do for Relief
• More Lumbar Disc Resources