How to prevent disk herniation of the back?
How to prevent disk herniation of the back?
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One of my client Sherri was diagnosed with L4/5, L5/S1 disk herniation after on and off back pain for 3 years. She had been through some exercises in the past but still with on and off symptoms. Recently she had an accident of bending over to pick up her shoes and ended up with significant back pain. She got an MRI and had the above diagnosis confirmed.
She walked into the clinic with limping gait and sat down with only the left hip on the chair. She had significant difficulty in moving in and out of bed, car, and chairs. The numbness and tingling and pain was shooting from the back to her right butt and down to the toes. She could not function well as mother and could not walk to another office to discuss work with her colleagues. She cried for a while and asked how she could do to prevent the disk herniation of the lumbar spine.
I paused for a few seconds because there are so many things that might contribute to the result of herniation disk of the lumbar spine. Then, I asked about her habits and observe how she treat her body. She overused her lumbar spine with almost everything and did not know how to use the hips muscles correctly. She also did not know how to kick in the pelvic floor muscles and core muscles at the very moment with sit to stand or step up motions.
"It is not what you do, it is HOW you do it."
Make sense, right?
Don't ignore the early signs of soreness, spasm, and weakness feeling of the lumbar and hips.
Do see a qualified provider, if you have some tingling or numbness symptoms in your legs.
Prevention is much better than treatment.
After 6 weeks of treatment, Sherri was able to walk and get in and out of car/bed without back pain. After 12 weeks of treatment, she was able to do most of her housework and job-related activities without pain or numbness in the legs.
She was happy to avoid the back surgery because she realized the long-term outcome of the surgery was not as good as the non-operative approach based on her research.
If you want to avoid the surgery, talk with your PCP and spine surgeon. Try conservative approach with an experienced licensed physical therapist.
Here are things you can do:
1. Improve the flexibility of the hips without overuse of the lumbar spine
2. When you bend over to pick up things, do use your thigh and butt muscles.
3. Adequate warm-up and cool down before high-level activities
4. Don't ignore constant soreness/spasm of the back muscles. Those are signs of the abnormal compensation of the muscle groups.
5. If you already have some numbness or tingling in your legs and was told that you might have sciatica nerve irritation, don't wait. Do yourself a favor, get help now. The cost of operation on the lumbar spine was insane. The suffering during and after the surgery was not fun at all. The time to recover from this kind of major surgery will be over 3 months at least. Some surgeon will tell you to prepare for 1 year time to recover.
Take home message:
1."It is not what you do, it is HOW you do it."
2. Prevention is better than any treatments.
Free sit to stand exercise video with instructions is available by email.
Send a request to DrShengWu@PTcares.com with a note of "free sit-to-stand exercise".
WWW.PTCARES.COM
One of my client Sherri was diagnosed with L4/5, L5/S1 disk herniation after on and off back pain for 3 years. She had been through some exercises in the past but still with on and off symptoms. Recently she had an accident of bending over to pick up her shoes and ended up with significant back pain. She got an MRI and had the above diagnosis confirmed.
She walked into the clinic with limping gait and sat down with only the left hip on the chair. She had significant difficulty in moving in and out of bed, car, and chairs. The numbness and tingling and pain was shooting from the back to her right butt and down to the toes. She could not function well as mother and could not walk to another office to discuss work with her colleagues. She cried for a while and asked how she could do to prevent the disk herniation of the lumbar spine.
I paused for a few seconds because there are so many things that might contribute to the result of herniation disk of the lumbar spine. Then, I asked about her habits and observe how she treat her body. She overused her lumbar spine with almost everything and did not know how to use the hips muscles correctly. She also did not know how to kick in the pelvic floor muscles and core muscles at the very moment with sit to stand or step up motions.
"It is not what you do, it is HOW you do it."
Make sense, right?
Don't ignore the early signs of soreness, spasm, and weakness feeling of the lumbar and hips.
Do see a qualified provider, if you have some tingling or numbness symptoms in your legs.
Prevention is much better than treatment.
After 6 weeks of treatment, Sherri was able to walk and get in and out of car/bed without back pain. After 12 weeks of treatment, she was able to do most of her housework and job-related activities without pain or numbness in the legs.
She was happy to avoid the back surgery because she realized the long-term outcome of the surgery was not as good as the non-operative approach based on her research.
If you want to avoid the surgery, talk with your PCP and spine surgeon. Try conservative approach with an experienced licensed physical therapist.
Here are things you can do:
1. Improve the flexibility of the hips without overuse of the lumbar spine
2. When you bend over to pick up things, do use your thigh and butt muscles.
3. Adequate warm-up and cool down before high-level activities
4. Don't ignore constant soreness/spasm of the back muscles. Those are signs of the abnormal compensation of the muscle groups.
5. If you already have some numbness or tingling in your legs and was told that you might have sciatica nerve irritation, don't wait. Do yourself a favor, get help now. The cost of operation on the lumbar spine was insane. The suffering during and after the surgery was not fun at all. The time to recover from this kind of major surgery will be over 3 months at least. Some surgeon will tell you to prepare for 1 year time to recover.
Take home message:
1."It is not what you do, it is HOW you do it."
2. Prevention is better than any treatments.
Free sit to stand exercise video with instructions is available by email.
Send a request to DrShengWu@PTcares.com with a note of "free sit-to-stand exercise".
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