Home | Health | Pain & Pain Management | Back Pain | Should You Treat a Bulging Disk?

Should You Treat a Bulging Disk?

by Genevieve Rice

Overview

Located between the vertebrae, spinal disks absorb shock for the spine, allowing flexibility of movement. However, over time or through injury, these disks can become worn. A bulging disk occurs when the disk's soft, jelly-like middle bulges out through the disk's fibrous outer layer. Although some bulging disks can be painful, not all require treatment; many times the problem will go away with mild at-home treatment. However, if you experience more serious side effects such as numbness or narrowing of the spinal canal, seek medical attention immediately.
Medications

Relieve pain and stiffness from a bulging disk with medication. For mild pain, take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or naproxen (Aleve) as directed. For more serious pain, try oral steroid medication to treat inflammation, or epidural injections into the spine, which can provide pain relief for a period ranging from one week to one year, depending on the dosage.

Physical Therapy

Strengthen your back, improve spine flexibility and relieve pain with a regular exercise regimen. Stretching your hamstrings, the muscles located on the back of your legs, will help improve your spine's flexibility. Try this hamstring exercise: While sitting in a chair with your feet remaining flat on the ground, pull back with your legs until your hamstrings are stretched. Hold this pose for 30 to 60 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, then repeat nine times to complete a set of 10. Build up and stabilize the back with exercises. Talk to your doctor or physical therapist about the McKenzie exercise regimen, which was design to strengthen and relieve pain by extending the spine. Also, contribute to your back strength with aerobic conditioning exercises, such as walking and biking for 30 to 40 minutes at least three times per week.
Chiropractic and Osteopathic Treatments

Seek chiropractic and osteopathic therapies to help relieve pain from a bulging disk. Chiropractors manipulate the spine to relieve pain and increase range of motion. Osteopathic practitioners take a holistic approach to medicine and examine how the back can be realigned with the rest of the body to increase function.
Surgical Treatment

Consider surgical options if the pain from a bulging disk becomes debilitating. A diskectomy removes the bulging part of the disk to relieve pain. In this surgical procedure the lamina, the back part of the vertebra, is removed to grant better access to the bulging disk. A less invasive version of this surgery, microdiskectomy, makes a smaller incision and uses a special microscope, causing less scarring to tissues near the bulging disk. Also, spinal fusion helps eradicate pain between two vertebrae caused by a bulging disk. This operation fuses two or more bones permanently to increase the back's stability. Deteriorating disks can also be replaced, in part or wholly, with artificial disks that cushion the spine just as a spinal disk would.