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Low Back Disc Herniation: Try Chiropractic Treatment

Disc Herniation

Low back pain can occur when spinal discs in the lumbar area become herniated. A herniated disc occurs when the bone of a disc has crumbled or fractured and the soft inner core bulges through the outer portion of the disc. This can place pressure on the spinal nerve root which runs through the discs. This can result in pain in the lower back, perhaps with numbness, tingling, or weakness in the legs and buttocks.

MDs commonly treat acutely herniated discs with pain medication, oral steroids and epidural injections of cortisone. Unfortunately, those approaches offer back pain patients limited success and even worse, can have adverse side effects.

chiropractic care for herniated disc

Chiropractic care has been shown to be effective for herniated discs.

Chiropractors use adjustments, rather than drugs or injections. The chiropractic approach has been validated by a major study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiologic Therapeutics. That publication reported that chiropractors can treat both chronic and acute herniated discs effectively. The study referenced followed 148 patients with lumbar disc herniations confirmed by MRI. The patients who were followed had back pain, sciatica, and radiating leg symptoms. 79 of them had experienced their symptoms, without relief, for over three months.

The patients were treated with chiropractic adjustments appropriate for their individual case. Manipulation was characterized as “high-velocity” or “low-amplitude spinal manipulation.”  The patients were evaluated at two weeks, one month, three months, six months, and one-year intervals. Patients self-assessed treatment success at those intervals, rating their condition on a scale spanning from “much worse to much better.”

The results validated chiropractic treatment for herniated discs and were pleasantly surprising since they exceeded the typical clinical expectation. Typically, it was thought that only 36% of patients with lumbar herniated disc demonstrated improvement after two weeks of chiropractic treatment. In this study, 69% of the patients receiving chiropractic treatment reported significant improvement in mobility and pain reduction, after just two weeks. At the one-month interval, the number experiencing improvement increased to 79.6% reporting substantial improvement (graded better or much better)!. At the three-month interval, 90.5% of the patients reported significant improvements. The chiropractic treatments ended at the three-month mark, but later assessments (at the six month and twelve month intervals) revealed that 88% reported maintaining their improved condition.

Even better, there were no adverse side-effects reported with chiropractic and the authors of the study concluded that a large percentage of patients with acute and chronic lumbar disc herniation will experience improvement when using chiropractic care. This conclusion comes as no surprise to chiropractors who have treated herniated discs for years and to the patients with lower back pain who have been helped. It is especially encouraging when scientific research catches up to what those inside the field know: that a drug-free, surgery-free approach focused on treating the whole patient can help the body heal itself. Those in-the-know about to the benefits of chiropractic care find it is superior to treatments which mask symptoms with painkillers or a better alternative to steroids or epidural injections.

If you have been diagnosed or are suffering from a herniated disc or discs and are in the metro Boston area, please call Dr. Moramarco or your local chiropractor. It is likely that your herniated disc(s) can be alleviated through chiropractic care, without drugs or surgery.

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