Low back pain affects many millions of Americans on a daily basis. Degenerative disc disease is a condition that affects young and middle-aged individuals and can lead to back pain that comes on a daily basis, or it may wax and wane depending on when it decides to be a bother.
Between the spinal vertebrae, there is a shock absorbing intervertebral disc at all levels of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine. The discs are made of 80% water, and every time a person walks or jumps they act to absorb the shock from those activities.
Research has shown that people over the age of 40 have a 40% incidence of degenerative disease. Most of these folks have no back pain at all. Even when there is severe degenerative disc disease present on x-rays or MRI, the patient does not necessarily have any problems with back pain.
For individuals who do have horrible back pain from degenerative disc disease the initial question to answer is "Why is this problem affecting me?"
Individuals who develop degenerative disease don't always have it from an injury. It could just be simply genetics that caused that disc level to start dehydrating earlier than others and leads to lack of water, a loss of height of the disc, and subsequent pain.
In other people, their backs have been this injury with subsequent disease that got worse with ensuing pain. The could've also been a previous disc herniation that was treated with an operation successfully than afterwards developed progressive degenerative changes from a significant part of the disk no longer being there.
Initial treatment of back pain from a degenerative disc should involve the basics such as activity avoidance and over-the-counter pain medications. The person should avoid the activity that incites the pain, such as if jogging makes it worse then maybe switch over to swimming or cycling.
Over-the-counter medications include Tylenol and anti-inflammatory medications such as naproxen and ibuprofen. You should always take the medication in accordance with the manufacturer's recommended dosing. It may make all the difference in a patient who suffers with a low level of pain from degnerative disc disease.
Additional treatments at the next level of pain management include spinal decompression therapy, chiropractor Naples treatment, acupuncture, massage, and physical therapy. These treatments all have a very low risk profile for treating the lower back.
For instance, Jacksonville chiropractor treatment has been shown to have over an 85% satisfaction rate in America and also a very high level of lasting results. Spinal decompression therapy has been shown to have over 85% effectiveness for good to excellent results. Spinal decompression therapy is low risk, highly effective, and cost less than 5% of that of spinal surgery.
Physical therapy can teach the patient better core strengthening, lumbar strengthening, and provide individuals with a home program to utilize to keep the pain at bay.
Along with these treatment options, and interventional pain management Dr. can help as well. Providing chronic opiates for degenerative disease is not a great option. They can be utilized as a short-term mechanism for an acute exacerbation of back pain, but the long-term risks of this are usually not worth it.
Interventional treatments on the other hand can work exceptionally well. Intradiscal electrothermal treatment is not very popular anymore because the results were never great.That was a treatment involving burning the interior part of the disc.
Some pain management doctors in Florida will inject steroid medication and numbing medicine into the disc itself and this has a fairly low risk to it but the benefit has not been truly shown. Along with degenerative disc disease, individuals often have facet related pain due to the abnormal motion.
Because of this, facet treatments including radiofrequency ablation or direct facet injections are often needed and have provided substantial pain relief. There are also some stem cell injection critical trials going on in the US which provide the potential for regeneration inside the disc.'s initial results have been promising.
These treatments have been showing promise for degenerative disc disease. Aerobic exercise has been shown to be an excellent treatment for the problem. Over 75% of patients are able to successfully avoid surgery.
Other than these nonsurgical options, surgery for degenerative disease is truly only a last resort. Surgical outcomes tend to be a roll of the dice, and the person may only get rid of part of the problem or potentially be worse off than they were before the surgery.