Could Your Pain Be Related to a Herniated Disc?

You find it nearly impossible to turn your head to back up the car because of pain in your neck. Or, maybe it’s hard to walk thanks to shooting pain in your lower back. One of the more likely culprits behind either of these scenarios is a herniated disc, which can lead to several symptoms, depending upon its location.

In this month’s blog post, Dr. Sachida Manocha and the team at Interventional Pain Center in  Worthington and Newark, Ohio, take a deeper dive into herniated discs, a very common and often uncomfortable problem.

Your discs and your spine

Your spine is made up of 33 vertebrae that stretch from the base of your neck down to your pelvis. While some vertebrae at the bottom of your spine are fused together, most aren’t, allowing movement in your spine.

Enabling and encouraging this movement are 23 intervertebral discs, which act as spacers in between your vertebrae, as well as shock absorbers for your spinal column.

To perform its duties, each of your discs consists of a tough outer layer called the annulus, which houses a soft, gel-like interior called the nucleus.

What happens when a disc herniates

When one of your discs herniates, it means that the nucleus is pushing up against the annulus, creating a bulge, or even a leak if the annulus tears. While you can herniate a disc in an acute injury, the problem tends to develop because of wear-and-tear issues like degenerative disc disease, which affects more than 90% of people by the age of 60.

The reason why herniated discs can become so problematic is because there’s limited space along your spinal column and when materials bulge or leak out, they can interfere with other tissues.

More specifically, your spine acts as ground zero for most of your peripheral nervous system. From your spinal canal, you have 31 pairs of spinal nerves that exit your spine, including:

• 8 in your neck
• 12 in your mid back
• 5 in your lower back
• 5 in your sacrum
• 1 in your coccyx

If a piece of your herniated disc compresses or irritates one of these nerve roots, you can develop local and radiating symptoms that travel down the nerve.

Signs of a herniated disc

In almost all cases, herniated discs develop in areas of your spine that move the most — your neck (cervical) and your lower back (lumbar).

When we talk about symptoms that radiate down the nerve, where they end up depends upon which spinal nerve is pinched. If the pinched nerve is in your neck, you may feel symptoms down one shoulder and arm. If the herniated disc is in your lower back, you can feel the effects down one side of your buttocks and into your leg and foot, a condition we call sciatica.

Whether the symptoms remain local or they radiate, symptoms can include:

• Pain
• Numbness
• Tingling
• Weakness

These symptoms can also come and go with certain movements that push the herniated disc against the nerve.

If any of this sounds like what you’re dealing with, we recommend that you come to see us so that we can help you find relief. To get started, please schedule an appointment online or over the phone with one of our locations in Worthington or Newark, Ohio.