"StandUpRight News" by Dr. Donaldson

Will Non-Surgical Disc Decompression Help Heal My Disc Herniation?

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes: Sometimes back pain seems like it goes on forever. It can be pretty scary wondering about your future. "What if I continue to get worse? What if my sciatic leg pain never goes away? Will I ever be able to get back to a normal life again?"

Some things never can get better. A piece of steak never turns back into a cow's leg. Humpty-Dumpty couldn't be put back together again. Done is done.

But the good thing about living things is they have the capacity to heal. Healing means repair and replacement of diseased, broken or failing tissue. Living things heal, dead things don't. So even the disc can heal. Slowly. And under the right conditions. But the tissue does have living cells that are able to repair and replace damaged tissue.

Spinal X-rays – The Missed Opportunity?

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes:

"I had x-rays and MRIs and they say nothing is wrong except arthritis."

"My doctor says my insurance company tells him I don't need x-rays of my back and that I should just take these drugs and my back pain would go away. Well, it didn’t. My back keeps hurting and all they do is keep giving me drugs. What’s wrong?"

 

Both of these stories point out the missed opportunity of spinal x-rays.

 

Sometimes people come to us with page after page of x-ray, CT and MRI reports and still have never had a good explanation of why they have not gotten any better. On the other hand we see people come to us with long-standing back pain that they can't get rid of and who have never been x-rayed. Some insurance companies refuse to pay for x-rays in the first thirty days, yet Medicare thinks the x-ray is important.

 

So what is the proper use of x-rays for back pain?

Will Walking Help My Herniated Disc?

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes:

Walking is not always the best exercise.

If you can't do any other exercise you can always walk, right? It's symmetrical, it's low impact, it can increase your aerobic capacity and burn calories, plus you get to enjoy being outside in the air and sunshine.

But there are people for whom walking might not be the best. It might actually do more harm than good, especially if you have a herniated disc in your back.

Help Your Child Avoid a Herniated Disc

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes:

Children don't need any more problems than they already have. And the last thing a child needs is a herniated disc problem. It can ruin some of the best years of a person's life. It is known that the risk of having back pain as an adult increases when a person experiences lower back pain as a child.

Years ago when computers first came into daily use we thought that by today we'd live in a "paperless society." But now when children have computers at school, computers at home, even computers in their hands, you'd think that text books would be obsolete and all they'd have to carry back and forth to school would be their lunch. That's waaaaay not true. Every year it seems like the backpacks get heavier instead of lighter.

For When Simple Pain Relief Measures Are Not Enough

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes:

Sometimes all it takes to get you feeling better and back to your normal activities is a week or two or three of spinal adjustments and some pain control therapies. If this is the case then we’ll discharge you when you have recovered to as good as you need to be and the doctor is confident that you will not end up right back here in pain a couple of weeks after stopping treatment.

But sometimes your spine is more messed up than you thought it was. Sometimes the pain stays longer that you’d like it to. Or sometimes your pain just keeps coming back… and back … and back.

Healing After a Herniated Disc Takes More Than Just a Core Exercise Program

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Sciatica Doctor writes:

Finally. A day without leg pain!

So you've overcome that nasty sciatica. No more shooting pain into your leg whenever you hit a bump while driving your car. No more having to drag yourself home after work and lie on the floor all night just to find a bit of relief. Maybe you can even stop the medication that knocks you out and constipates you for days on end.

The worst thing in the world would be for the pain to come back once you have had some relief. Sure, you are happy that you feel better. That's a good first step. But getting the pain reduced is only one step toward solving the problem that caused the pain in the first place. So let the healing begin.

Whether the direct cause of your sciatic nerve pain is a herniated disc, spinal stenosis, facet syndrome or piriformis syndrome, as the nerve pain begins to lessen you need to be paying close attention to your lifestyle so you can change the habits that got you into such a condition.

Mind Over Disc

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Sciatic Pain Doctor writes:

The other day while my daughter was at work, I changed the burned out headlight in her car. I left the dead bulb on the passenger seat just like the real car mechanics do. When she got into the car after work she was able to see that there was a dead bulb there. The new bulb worked. The old one didn't.

Seeing the dead bulb lying on her seat did not affect the performance of the new bulb. The new one shined just as bright as if she had not seen the dead one lying there. 

Apparently people aren't like lightbulbs.

Turn Your Bad Back Into a Good Back

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Bad Back Doctor writes:
You didn't start out with a bad back. In fact you didn't start with a back at all, not even a front! You started out round...as just a single cell. So there wasn't a front or a back. 

Everything that is you developed from that one cell. And through the miracle of life, that one cell became two, then four, then eight and on and on and on... until organs formed and you became recognizably human.

Of course you probably don't remember much about when you were one cell. But at some instant you became aware that there was something happening around you that you didn't cause, and likewise, that you could have an effect on your environment that persisted over time.

Warbler's Neck Can Be a Real Pain

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Neck Pain Doctor writes:

Tonight the skies will be filled with migrating birds of all kinds. The NexRad radar shows swarms of them moving northward with the warmer weather. So this weekend birders will be out in force.

It will be a particularly great time for spotting warblers. Warblers are tiny birds that fly from as far away as South America to northern Canada and back each year. Spring is the best time of year to see them since the trees are still bare and the birds are in their spring breeding colors, making identification easier than when they make their return trip South in the fall.

After a long night flight, they rest and feed during the day. On a good day you may be able to identify two or three dozen different species of warblers in your own neighborhood park. With names like Yellow Warbler, Orange-Crowned Warbler, Hooded, Palm, Prairie, Black-throated Green, Bay-breasted, Chestnut-sided, Golden-winged, Yellow-throated, Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Blue, and Black-and-White Warbler it's no wonder so many people love the challenge of spotting them. 

What is the Best Way to Heal a Herniated Disc?

Milwaukee Board Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist and Herniated Disc Doctor writes: When you cut your finger it heals. When you sprain your ankle it heals. Healing is one of the defining characteristics of living tissue - like growth and reproduction.

Herniated discs can heal too. But like a finger or an ankle if you don't create the proper environment for the healing process, the healing will be incomplete and may leave you with an ongoing problem.

So what conditions can you create that will allow for the herniated disc to heal itself?