Proven Natural Therapies For Low Back Disk Herniation- surgery is last resort By Dr. James Meschino, DC, MS, ND Welcome to the Nutrition Research Update from the Renaisante Institute of Integrative Medicine. I am Dr. James Meschino. Our topic today is Low Back Disk Herniation. So with Low Back Disk Herniation there are symptoms that can be you know very mild to very severe such is not only back pain but also pain in the buttocks, pain down in the back of the thigh, pain reaches at knees than it becomes a more serious situation of the pain goes below the knee this is when you start to release suspect there may be some Herniation going onto that's a possibility. It can also go down to the foot not only can have pain you can have Tingling, numbness, some significant Muscle weakness, upon neurological examination some reflex changes that doctor might find. So the symptoms can be quite mild to very incapacitating actually but you have to differentiate between a disc herination and disk protrusion. So the disk herination is also known as prolapsed disk or ruptured disk that's different than disc protrusion where the disk is bulging which is less serious. Here's how the disk is put together. In around the outer fibrous of the disk fibrous rings and in the center of the disk like a jello type of material that's very gelatin like and so the fibrous rings around the gelatin and in the center keep the gelatin in place and the gelatin work as a shock absorbing component of the disk. When you have a herination you actually have tears in the fibrous tissues and the gelatin sort of works its way through those tears and will actually bulge beyond that the outer borders of the fibrous rings and usually that happens in the backwards and sort of side direction which puts pressure on the spinal nerves where actually in the spinal canal and that neve pressure can create a lot of pain and some really debilitating symptoms. So lot of such pain is coming from direct pressure on the nerves by the gelatin it's escape through the tears and in the spinal disk in a disk herination. Now disk herination normally a further development of what was disc protrusion so disk protrusion and disk bulge is sort of the thing that most people have it can lead up to a herination if it’s not manage properly. So what's a disk protrusion? That's what the outermost fibres of the of the fibrous ring are still intact but the bulge a little and they put a little bit of pressure on the spinal nerves are creates an inflammatory process but the gelatin in the center is not actually escaping and actually rupturing through the outer fibers of the fibrous rings. So a bulge is less serious than a true herination or ruptured prolapsed disk. So what is important to know is certain things that you do in your life can actually put more pressure on the disk and increase the likelihood you goona forced tears in the outer ring and cause the gelatin material to actually force its way through those tears and create a herination. So long periods of sitting are linked with more disk pressure. When you are bending forward to put more pressure on the disk compared to leaning backwards and a lot of occupations are recreational activities with repetitive bending like shovelling, gardening, many other occupational activities were you're bending into coming back up, the bending your coming back up repeated pressure on the disk can create a tears over a period of time bulges in the disk and may set the stage for some of that the gel material to escape and create a disk herination. Sitting and leaning forward puts a lot of pressure on the disk this may cause of bulging disk to weak further. The good news is that conservative treatment for disk protrusion is highly effective in fact studies show that chiropractic treatments extremely effective for disk protrusion where you have just the bulge of the disk try to correct that's and doesn't become a more serious problem down the road. Some chiropractors will recommend traction, decompression, exercise therapy or soft-tissue treatment all these things work synergistically to produce a very good outcome. With this disk herination sometimes it heals and sometimes it so severe actually requires surgery. Now many minor herination actually heal just in a number of weeks with bed rest and conservative treatment and most of the pain in a disk herination in the beginning are really coming from the release of inflammatory chemicals but when you have severe herination with the gelatin material escape quite significantly it's a lot of pressure on the spinal nerves you can have really incapacitating pain which may in fact require surgery and when the pain as below the knee and there’s weakness of the muscles and reflex changes occurring when the doctor does the exam and it's very severe incapacitating these are the types of herination usually require more need of attention. Now most low back pain actually doesn't come from disk herination. Most of the back pain that we have to garden variety back pain that we feel usually these joints of the spine are actually misaligned or locked together. These are called the facets and they sort of jam and the irritate s nerve muscle tension around the contractures and there may be some minor disk protrusion associated with that and that's the good news because that can be treated highly effectively with conservative management chiropractors experts are treating that type of problem. Some low back pain sometimes just cause from spasm and irritation. Sometimes with the imperfect joints meet the spine these are called the sacroiliac joints. They can shift because nerve irritation. They can look a lot like symptoms you get in a disk herination but it's actually coming from the sacroiliac joints. Chiropractors are experts at identifying that and the truth is the chiropractic treatment has been proven to be in clinical studies the most effective treatment for treating these common low back problems including disk protrusion and disk bulge. Facet and spasm problems are usually caused by repetitive lifting or twisting motions repetitive activities are even from a specific type of trauma or sports injury and sometimes from just unknown causes but again chiropractic care is the best suited treatment for getting people out of pain quickly back to their the normal occupation now just covering up symptoms with drugs mask the pain but correcting the underlying problem that's really what you want. Now in terms of disk herination in the aging process is interesting to know that most serious disk herination in people who are in the 30 & 40. As time goes on beyond that point the gelatin material inside this tends to dry out and hardened and so there's not much arrested that gelatin can escape increase a true disk rupture. So as we get older disk herinations are reducing in people's 50 and 60 a lot of low back pain becomes due to arthritic changes in the spine osteoarthritis and degenerated disk disease and even at the condition called spinal stenosis. They can also produce some low back pain, leg pain and so it takes to the right diagnosis to differentiate the type of back pain or actually getting. If you can see the signs and symptoms of disk herination there may be a little no pain of just the out of fibers are slightly bulges or can be really severe and incapacitating if you have a really frank herination you have the symptoms into the leg with reflex changes and at weakness and again other symptoms can include numbness, tingling, you know paralysis these are the sort of strange sensation like needles and pain someone touches your skin and other sort of neurological symptoms. Typically with the disk herination it's only been effect one side you are not going to feel it on both legs usually you feel on one buttock, one thigh, one le down to one foot and really non-surgical methods of treatment are usually attempted first surgery is usually the last resort. Lot of medical doctors will prescribe pain medication in the early stages just relive with the acute pain try with the disk heal with some conservative treatment but we're seeing is no evidence that inflammatory chemicals that are released during a disk herination are largely responsible for a lot of the pain and so rather than the pain being only due to pressure on the nerve sometimes just the disk bulge and the facet irritation and the muscle spasm are actually releasing chemicals that produce an inflammatory response and that gives rise to pain. In-fact evidence that a particular type of chemicals released called Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha we just call it TNF. TNF is released not only by a herniated spinal disk but also in a disk protrusion small amount of bulging with the facet joints become irritated and a spinal stenosis we see that you can start to get this type of chemical being released. So with the good news is that there are a certain types of dietary and supplementation practices that can go a long way to helping to reverse that and get you back in a situation where you can suppress that inflammatory chemical. So what’s a really matters in the ends it you get the right diagnosis. So the diagnosis of back pain requires the proper physical examination. This is a certain battery of tests they can determine disk protrusion from disk herination from sacroiliac from facet1 irritation from the muscle spasm and chiropractors spent four years just studying that so they1 are well equipped to do that assessment and highly trained in this area. They may require1 some imaging like xrays, CAT scans, may be an MRI for sometimes necessary to get a good1 look at the disk and even nerve conduction studies can tell the practitioner lot about1 how the nerves are behaving but addition to all that neurological orthopedic stuff that1 goes on in the diagnosis and the types of treatment that are available conservative1 management chiropractic care the nutrition and supplementation support is emerging to1 be very important in the long term management of these problems.1 So we are seeing certain types of nutritional support and supplements can help to support1 the spinal disk and suppressed inflammatory process. What are those things? After age1 40 everyone should take supplement with the contains glucosamine with three anti-inflammatory1 herbs MSM, Quercetin and Bromelain helps not only support the destruction so it doesn’t1 generate so quickly but also helps to suppress inflammatory chemicals that normally get released1 in the aging process. When we do have an inflammatory flare use their natural anti-inflammatory1 herbs that can suppress to release of TNF remember I told you that when you have back1 problems Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha secreted it produces a lot of the inflammatory and1 pain generating pathways. It can be suppressed with certain natural inflammatory herbs like1 Curcumin, Boswellia, White willow bark extract and ginger in a combination supplement. That1 way you don't have to use as much aspirin ibuprofen things that will damage your stomach1 and kidney and liver and actually hasten more cardiac degeneration. Using the right combination1 of essential facts a lot of people take essential oils. You know evening primrose, salmon oil,1 flaxseed oil but the best combination is actually fish oil with flaxseed oil and borage seed1 oil to produce these anti-inflammatory process and this improvement also suppressed inflammatory1 process and to make all of that work really well and to support the spinal disk and muscles1 and connective tissue you need high potency multiple vitamin and you need to be on an1 anti inflammatory diet. Now some other measures that are useful the right exercise program1 for strength training, right flexibility program possibly massage therapy and other things1 too release some of the muscle tissue sometimes electoral acupuncture is highly beneficial1 interrupting the pain/spasm nerve cycle. So you're chiropractor main recommend some traction1 or decompression maybe some massage therapy, may be some electro acupuncture, they should1 the probably design an exercise program in conjunction with the appropriate treatment1 that's being rendered in their office. Now because the nutrition supplementation aspect1 of it is the part that's not largely no in the text below you will see the exact diet1 in supplementation program to help suppress spinal inflammation and support the structural1 components of the spinal disk. They'll help to prevent disk degeneration as you get older1 and support the integrity of the spinal disk over a lifetime and again if you have problems1 than suppressing the inflammatory processes vitally important.1 I hope you found this to be useful and informative.If you have low back problems yourself you really1 should see a chiropractor and follow the dietary supplementation devices showing you here if1 you know someone who does have a problem like this please forward this newsletter to them1 so they can see it and evaluate the information for themselves. Thanks so much for watching1 and i'll see you next