Your discs act as natural shock absorbers since they protect your spine. They’re located between each of your vertebrae and have tough exteriors but soft, cushiony middles — reminiscent of a jelly donut.
When you suffer from a herniated or slipped disc, it means that part of the softer center of your disc pushes through a crack or weakness of its outer covering, which can compress a spinal nerve and cause a range of uncomfortable symptoms.
Herniated discs often cause no symptoms in the 1-5% of people who develop them at some point in their lives — but when they do, both mobility and quality of life can suffer.
Dr. Benjamin Cohen offers treatment and minimally invasive surgical solutions for many types of back and disc-related pain problems, including disc degeneration, spinal fractures, and more. He prioritizes restoring comfort and movement using the most advanced, customized approaches.
The symptoms of a slipped disc are diverse, so it’s important to be familiar with them to determine when to seek treatment. Suspect a herniated disc if you experience:
Depending on the location of your slipped disc, you may notice pain and numbness simultaneously in different parts of your hip, buttocks, or leg, which points to a herniated disc in your lower back.
A slipped disc in your upper back may cause pain around your shoulder blade or when you move your neck. The pain can also move to your upper arm, forearm, elbow, and fingers, and you might experience loss of sensation in these parts of your body.
Sciatica occurs when your sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back down the back of your leg, becomes injured or compressed. The results are leg pain, tingling, numbness, and weakness; the culprit is often a herniated disc.
Often, if you have a slipped disc, you notice that discomfort is exacerbated by performing certain movements, such as bending forward or down, lifting, pushing, or pulling something heavy, or sneezing and coughing.
Pain can also get bad after sitting or standing for an extended period, and it may become more intense at night.
This type of asymmetrical pain can mean that you’ve herniated a disc.
A slipped disc doesn’t just cause pain; it causes a wide range of uncomfortable symptoms.
Some of these symptoms might not make you think of a spine problem at all, but a herniated disc can create pain in many more places than your back, and it can become quite tough to endure.
Conservative treatments, including pain medications, physical therapy, and cortisone injections, are typically sufficient to address herniated disc pain and movement limitations.
Fortunately, most people’s slipped disc symptoms resolve within six weeks. Surgery might be necessary if they don’t, and you’re suffering severe symptoms, including moving only with great trouble and discomfort, loss of bowel or bladder control, and severe weakness or numbness.
In these cases, Dr. Cohen can perform a minimally invasive lumbar discectomy, removing your herniated disc to relieve pressure. Minimally invasive procedures just require small incisions and are associated with faster recovery and less pain, bleeding, and scarring.
Dr. Cohen may follow with spinal fusion, a surgery that stabilizes your spine after a procedure like decompression surgery, where he fuses two or more vertebrae into your bone with the help of metal screws, plates, or rods and a graft material. He may harvest it from your bones, obtain it from a bone bank, or use a fusion cage containing bone growth-stimulating biocompatible graft material.
Over time, your bones fuse and make your spine stronger.
If you suffer from a slipped disc, schedule an in-office or telemedicine appointment with Dr. Cohen to learn more about your options. Simply call our office at 516-246-5008 or reach out to us online.
