How Bulging and Herniated Discs Affect Your Spine

How do bulging discs and disc herniations affect your spine?

Both bulging and herniated discs can cause pain, but the severity and location can differ. Bulging discs might cause a dull ache, while herniated discs can produce sharp, radiating pain. Herniated discs are also more likely to cause weakness, numbness, and tingling in the arms or legs, depending on the location of the herniation.

While bulging and herniated discs affect the spine, they represent different stages of disc degeneration. Bulging discs are generally less serious, and symptoms may not even be present. Herniated discs, on the other hand, can cause significant pain and nerve issues. If you experience back pain that radiates down your leg or arm, consult a healthcare professional for proper diagnosis and treatment.

Get Help for Bulging Discs in Ann Arbor

Chiropractic care can go a long way towards helping you recover from spinal issues. Pivotal Chiropractic can help provide treatment for disc herniations and bulging discs in Ann Arbor. To reach out with questions or schedule an appointment, call (734) 221-0362 or submit a contact form here.

The Difference Between Bulging Discs and Disc Herniations

What’s the difference between bulging and herniated discs?

Like any complex system, your spine prone to wear and tear. Two common conditions that can affect the discs in your spine are disc bulges and disc herniations. These terms may sound similar, but they are very different conditions.

The Discs: Our Spinal Cushions

Between each vertebra sits a disc. These discs act as shock absorbers, providing cushioning and flexibility to the spine. Each disc has a tough outer shell and a soft, jelly-like center.

Bulging Disc: When the Tire Loses Air

Imagine a car tire. A bulging disc is like a tire that's lost some air. The disc retains its shape, but the outer layer weakens and bulges outward. This bulging can press on nearby nerves, causing pain. Bulging discs often go unnoticed, especially if they don't affect your nerves.

Herniated Disc: When the Filling Spills Out

A herniated disc is more severe than a bulge. Here, the outer layer tears or ruptures, allowing the soft center to protrude outward. This leakage can put significant pressure on spinal nerves, which can lead to pain, numbness, and weakness that radiates along the path of the affected nerve.

Get Help for Bulging Discs in Ann Arbor

Chiropractic care can go a long way towards helping you recover from spinal issues. Pivotal Chiropractic can help provide treatment for disc herniations and bulging discs in Ann Arbor. To reach out with questions or schedule an appointment, call (734) 221-0362 or submit a contact form here.

How many times a day do we flex our spine?

We are living in a world where our body is in a constant state of flexion.  We sit at a desk flexing our hips and lumbar spine while at the same time flexing our neck as we work on our computer.  We sit in our car driving to and from work with our hips and low back in a flexed position.  We look down at our phone, tablet or laptop with our neck in a forward flexed position.  

It’s no wonder our normal everyday life is wearing out our spines!  Patients that are “career sitters” have just as much disc and spinal damage as those that have done manual labor their whole life.  

Researchers published a study in the European Spine Journal that looked at 208 non-symptomatic volunteers during their daily living over a 24 hour period. They wore sensor strips on their lumbar spine to measure sagittal (forward and backward) spinal movements. Researchers found that the volunteers reached full spinal flexion on average 50 times per day and reached full spinal extension 0 times per day. 

Prevention of a Bulging Disc is Key!

If it’s impossible for you to avoid some of the flexing movements that can lead to a bulging disc, there are some key ways to prevent the injury even while at your desk job.

• Exercise regularly. Strengthening the trunk muscles helps stabilize and support your spine.
• Keep good posture. Remind yourself to keep your back straight and in a neutral position, especially when sitting at your desk for long periods. Take breaks to avoid sitting for hours on end, and remember the old adage: lift heavy objects with your legs, not with your back!

Read more on our website!

Get Relief from Bulging Disc Pain by Seeing Your Chiropractor in Ann Arbor

If you’re experiencing a bulging disc, you know the pain can disrupt your day and keep you from doing the things you love.

If you’re having arm or leg pain, numbness or tingling, or even noticing weakness in your arms or legs, Pivotal Chiropractic can help. Remember: you could have a herniated or bulging disc without showing symptoms! Regular adjustments at the chiropractor can help avoid these issues before they even begin.
To schedule a complimentary consultation, where a conversation is never a commitment, contact us at 734-221-0362.

What is a Bulging Disc?

When we think of spraining ligaments or joints, we usually think of the ankle or wrist.  In reality, most neck and back pain is actually a sprain injury to the posterior wall of one or more spinal discs. This causes weakness in the disc’s annular fibers, causing it to bulge or herniate.  

Most often, people feel this pain as stiffness or achiness and dismiss it as muscular. However, most of the time the pain you feel in these cases isn’t due to muscle soreness.

Did you know…

• Over 80% of neck and back pain demonstrates characteristics of disc bulges
• 50% of healthy young adults have at least one level of disc degeneration/ bulging.
• 9 out of 10 work related back injuries involve flexion or a combination of flexion and rotation – the most vulnerable positions for a disc.
• In the lumbar spine, the intervertebral disc mechanism is responsible for the production of symptoms in as many at 95% of patients.

The disc is the source of pain in up to 90% of overall neck and back pain conditions.  This can be mild – causing general tightness and achiness – to severe – unrelenting pain that radiates down the arms and legs, numbness and tingling, or even muscle atrophy or weakness. 

Luckily, most disc bulges and herniations can be resolved with the right treatment plan, which includes specific spinal corrections and disc-reducing exercises.  

Read more on our website!

Get Relief from Bulging Disc Pain by Seeing Your Chiropractor in Ann Arbor

If you’re experiencing a bulging disc, you know the pain can disrupt your day and keep you from doing the things you love. 

If you’re having arm or leg pain, numbness or tingling, or even noticing weakness in your arms or legs, Pivotal Chiropractic can help. Remember: you could have a herniated or bulging disc without showing symptoms! Regular adjustments at the chiropractor can help avoid these issues before they even begin.

To schedule a complimentary consultation, where a conversation is never a commitment, contact us at 734-221-0362.

How Does a Disc Bulge in the First Place?

 From Dr.Gessert: The spine is designed to be flexible. It allows us to flex, extend, rotate and laterally bend in all directions. It’s made up of 25 movable bones called vertebras, broken up into 4 sections, the cervical (neck) 7, thoracic 12, lumbar 5, and sacral 1. 

When we bend and flex our spine, the disc material can move. The jelly inside the disc will displace in the opposite direction of spinal movement.

When this wall is stretched, it allows the disc material to bulge outward towards the spinal canal and nerves. Since the wall is compromised and weakened, the disc material can’t go back in. If the bulge is large enough, it will compress the spinal nerve in that area, causing pain and even intense, radiating pain, numbness, and tingling into the extremity.  If the disc isn’t treated, it can lead to muscle weakness and atrophy.

Spending most of your day in a state of spinal flexion is the leading cause of disc bulging and
herniation.  

Learn more about preventing a bulging disc here! 

Get Relief from Bulging Disc Pain by Seeing Your Chiropractor in Ann Arbor

If you’re experiencing a bulging disc, you know the pain can disrupt your day and keep you from doing the things you love. 

To schedule a complimentary consultation, where a conversation is never a commitment, contact us at 734-221-0362 and we’ll take care of your bugling disc in Ann Arbor.

What is a Bulging Disc? How can it be Prevented?

From Dr.Gessert: When we think of spraining ligaments or joints we usually think of the ankle or wrist. However, most neck and back pain is actually a sign of a sprain injury to one or more spinal discs.

Whether this occurs from an injury or trauma, the result is weakness in the disc’s annular fibers, causing it to bulge or herniate. 

Most often, people feel this pain as stiffness or achiness and dismiss it as muscular. However, most of the time the pain you feel in these cases isn’t due to muscle soreness.

Did you know…?

·       Over 80% of neck and back pain demonstrates characteristics of disc bulges

·       50% of healthy young adults have at least one level of disc degeneration/ bulging

·       9 out of 10 work-related back injuries involve flexion or a combination of flexion and rotation – the most vulnerable positions for a disc.

The disc is the source of pain in up to 90% of overall neck and back pain conditions. Symptoms include general tightness and achiness, severe, unrelenting pain that radiates down the arms and legs, numbness and tingling, or even muscle atrophy or weakness. 

Learn more about preventing bulging discs here!  

Prevention of a Bulging Disc in Ann Arbor

If you’re having an arm or leg pain, numbness or tingling, or even noticing weakness in your arms or legs, Pivotal Chiropractic can help. Remember: you could have a herniated or bulging disc without showing symptoms! 

To schedule a complimentary consultation, where a conversation is never a commitment, contact us at 734-221-0362 to take care of your bulging disc in Ann Arbor.

Prevention of a Bulging Disc is Key!

If it’s impossible for you to avoid some of the flexing movements that can lead to a bulging disc, there are some key ways to prevent the injury even while at your desk job.

• Exercise regularly. Strengthening the trunk muscles helps stabilize and support your spine.
• Keep good posture. Remind yourself to keep your back straight and in a neutral position, especially when sitting at your desk for long periods.
• Take breaks to avoid sitting for hours on end, and remember the old adage: lift heavy objects with your legs, not with your back!

Get Relief from Bulging Disc Pain by Seeing Your Chiropractor in Ann Arbor

If you’re experiencing a bulging disc, you know the pain can disrupt your day and keep you from doing the things you love.

If you’re having arm or leg pain, numbness or tingling, or even noticing weakness in your arms or legs, Pivotal Chiropractic can help. Remember: you could have a herniated or bulging disc without showing symptoms!

Regular adjustments at the chiropractor can help avoid these issues before they even begin.
To schedule a complimentary consultation, where a conversation is never a commitment, contact us at 734-221-0362.

What is a Bulging Disc?

When we think of spraining ligaments or joints we usually think of the ankle or wrist. In reality, most neck and back pain is actually a sprain injury to the posterior wall of one or more spinal discs.

Whether this occurs from an injury or trauma is a result of poor habits that have compounded over time, the result is weakness in the disc’s annular fibers, causing it to bulge or herniate.

Most often, people feel bulging disc pain as stiffness or achiness and dismiss it as muscular. However, most of the time the pain you feel in these cases isn’t due to muscle soreness.

Learn more about the symptoms, prevention, and how a chiropractor can help you on our website!