SPINE BULGING DISK XRAY HOW TO

Here are 5 pieces of good news for spine pain. The poor relationship between imaging and spine pain should encourage you. Especially for chronic pain issues, pain doesnвЂ™t equal damage. Spinal pain is strongly influenced by activities, postures, stresses, beliefs, sleep, nutrition, and other factors. Pain is complex, the aggregation of many factors. ItвЂ™s not as simple as taking an X-Ray and visualizing the problem.Дespite highly advanced imaging techniques, 85% of low back pain is considered nonspecific and an anatomical cause canвЂ™t be identified ( 9). Testing and imaging donвЂ™t usually tell us the source of spine pain. You can read my story to learn what finally relieved my pain.

SPINE BULGING DISK XRAY HOW TO

It left me frustrated and exasperated, uncertain what to do next.Д®ventually I learned how to treat it. I endured chronic low back pain through high school and college. Learn more about red flag symptoms for low back pain at the end of this article. Your physical therapist or primary care doctor will keep an eye out for red flags that could warrant imaging. Or if red flag symptoms occur, like progressive neurological deficits ( 8).

Guidelines also recommend imaging if symptoms donвЂ™t resolve after 6 weeks of conservative treatment. Imaging is the best tool for ruling out rare conditions like fractures, tumors and spinal cord compression. No, X-Rays and MRIs can play an important role for spine pain. ItвЂ™s bound to happen, and it typically doesnвЂ™t cause any problems. By age 80, 96% of pain-free individuals have DDD in their spine ( 6).ДЄrthritic changes in the spine are like getting facial wrinkles as we get older. Most notably, degenerative disc disease is clearly a normal part of aging. TheyвЂ™re common in pain-free individuals and usually donвЂ™t correlate well to pain. ItвЂ™s the same with bone spurs, DDD, and other MRI findings. Therefore, itвЂ™s no surprise bulging discs are poorly correlated to pain ( 7). If you randomly picked 100 middle-aged people off the street, ages 40 to 60, guess how many would have bulging discs.ДҐ? 10? Maybe even 20?! Research says itвЂ™s 60!Д¦0% of healthy, pain-free middle aged adults have bulging discs ( 6). This causes negative beliefs like вЂњI shouldnвЂ™t moveвЂќ or вЂњmy spine is fragile.вЂќ Negative beliefs and low expectations delay recovery and increased likelihood of chronic pain ( 5).ДЇor more on why getting MRI is usually a bad idea for back pain, check out 5 Low Back Pain Mistakes Proven to Prolong Recovery. I think the management of this case was very appropriate, conservative initially, and surgery only after the failure of the non-operative treatments.MRI findings typically sound bad, like the spine is damaged. The choice of the microdiscectomy was appropriate in this situation, and I would expect the patient to do quite well. After counseling the patient and his family, the decision for surgery was appropriate after failure of conservative care. This is also a very common scenario and implies that the initial treatments, while effective for symptomatic relief, did not result in resolution of the actual anatomical problem of the disc bulging outward against the nerve and putting pressure on the nerve, resulting in the symptoms. Unfortunately, the symptoms recurred, and the MRI again revealed the herniated disc at the L5-S1 level, which was unchanged from the prior MRI. These injections are also very appropriate at this time, and again, many patients will respond favorably as in this case. This initially appeared to resolve the symptoms and allowed the patient to return to his activities. After 6 weeks of continued symptoms, despite the conservative care, the physician recommended a selective root block injection at the level of the disc herniation. In the majority of patients, this will alleviate the symptoms and allow for recovery with significant relief of pain. In this case, conservative treatment in the forms of anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy, and activity modification was absolutely appropriate.

Certainly, conservative treatment is the most appropriate as the initial treatment for these types of conditions, as long as there is no urgent neurological deterioration. This is a case of a 17-year-old male athlete who sustained a disc herniation in the lumbar spine at the L5-S1 level.

Spine bulging disk xray