How Does This Brace Help Me Recover from a Lumbar Herniated Disc?
A herniated disc, also known as a slipped or ruptured disc, is a common condition, especially in older adults. The pain can be quite disruptive to your day-to-day life.
A ruptured lumbar disc refers to when some of the soft inner material of a disc slips through a crack in its tough exterior. This differs from a bulging disc where the disc simply bulges outside of the space it normally occupies without rupturing. But the symptoms, causes, and conservative modes of treatment of herniated and bulging discs are largely the same.
Still unsure about the difference between herniated, bulging, and ruptured discs? Check out this blog to help you differentiate between these spinal conditions.
Do I Have a Slipped or Herniated Disc?
The cause of a herniated disc in your spine or a bulging disc is often the gradual disc degeneration that occurs as you age. Sometimes a traumatic event or using your back muscles to lift something large or improperly is to blame for a ruptured disc in your lower back.
Symptoms of a Herniated Disc
In some cases, you may not even be aware this has occurred. But if the herniated disk impacts one or several spinal nerves, it can cause intense pain in your buttocks, thigh, and calf that can eventually shoot into your arm or legs when you cough, sneeze, twist, etc.
Other ruptured disc symptoms include numbness or tingling in the affected area, muscle weakness, and loss of bladder control in severe cases.
5 Treatment Options for a Herniated Disc
- Rest and avoid high contact sports and heavy lifting
- Perdiv therapeutic physical therapy exercises
- Use heat and ice therapy to reduce inflammation and soothe sore tissues
- Talk to your doctor about cortisone injections or surgery
- Buy a high-quality mattress for disc herniation
Whether you are able to treat a herniated disk using conservative or surgical treatment will depend upon the severity of your symptoms, as well as the health of the individual. In roughly 90% of patients, conservative methods are enough to ease the symptoms of a herniated disc. But for a small number of patients, surgery to remove the protruding part of the disc or, in rare cases, the entire disc.
This at-home decompression back brace can offer the support you will need after undergoing such surgeries. While herniated discs are most common in the lumbar spine, they can also occur farther up in the thoracic and cervical spine. Because the inserts of this device extend to your T9 vertebrae, the traction brace can also help with a herniated disc in your middle or upper back.