Video Transcript: The Biggest Myth About Herniated Disc Injuries

Hi, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here from Pain Science Physical Therapy. I felt [that] it was important to put together a really quick video to address a myth that patients talk to me all [of] the time about, and the myth is that when you injure your disc, it stays injured forever. That’s it. It’s done. Here’s the thing: if you are a living, breathing human being and you have a relatively healthy immune system, when you injure your discs, your discs heal. Okay? It’s really important. When you injure a disc, the disc is tissue and it heals.

So, that means that if you injured a disc when you were 25 years old and maybe you had an MRI and it shows that you actually herniated a disc and it was injured at the time, 25 years later, that disc is not still herniated. Alright? If that disc remained herniated and continued to cause significant problems, chances are [that] you would have already had surgery for it. And, it wouldn’t be for back pain. Okay?

So, this is also really important. Lots of times, patients will come in and they’ll say, “Oh, my disc! I herniated my disc 25 years ago, and that disc flares up on me. And, I have problems with it.” And, I have to start talking to them at length about anatomy and the healing process in the human body and the fact that pain is separate from tissue. Okay? So, when you injure a disc, the disc heals. Sometimes, it can take a while. In fact, it can take sometimes ten months for a disc to heal if it was significantly injured. But, it does tend to heal because it’s tissue, just like your muscles, your ligaments, your nerves, [and] all [of] the tissue that heals once they have been injured. So, repeat it with me. When a disc gets injured, a disc will heal. Okay?

[There’s] one more thing to think about: if we image a disc today that’s been injured… Okay? Let’s say your disc is bulging. Right? You have an injury. Your back is killing you. You go to the doctor and say, “Okay. Let’s get an MRI.” And, they see that you have a bulging disc, or a herniated disc. Two months after they image that bulging disc, if they image it again, that disc will be 50% smaller. And ten months later, that disc can be completely healed. So, we now have studies that let us know that discs heal. If you have enough of an injury to the disc where that disc has herniated enough that it continues to put compression on the nerve that is running down your leg and then you start-you continue to have pain down the leg, weakness, nerve irritation, even sensory changes, then you may choose to have surgery for that or have already had surgery. If you are just experiencing back pain, then chances are, especially if that back pain just comes and goes, chances are you are no longer dealing with a disc injury. And instead, you are dealing with something else completely different. That something else completely different could be nerve hypersensitivity in and around the area where the disc was injured. It can also be programming where the brain has remembered that really awful experience and hasn’t let that pain go. These are all real ways in which we experience pain in our back. [They are] completely 100% real. But, may in fact no longer be related to that disc injury that you had 25 years ago.

Let me know what you think. I know that’s kind of controversial. I’d love to hear your comments [and] your opinions. Feel free to-you know-put those below if you thought that this was a great video. I’d love a thumbs-up, and feel free to-you know-subscribe to my channel so [that] you can learn more about persistent pain and how physical therapy works to try and heal persistent pain. Have a great day!