Herniated disc is mostly very painful, most people feels much better with simple, nonsurgical treatments in the form of rest, exercise and physiotherapy.
A herniated disc doesn’t always cause pain or discomfort, but if it pushes against the spinal nerve in the lower back, we will have pain in the back and radiating pain in the legs (sciatica). If a herniated disc occurs in our neck, we may have pain in your neck, shoulders, and arms. Besides pain, a herniated disc can lead to numbness, tingling, and weakness.
A herniated disc doesn’t always cause pain or discomfort, but if it pushes against the spinal nerve in the lower back, we will have pain in the back and radiating pain in the legs (sciatica). If a herniated disc occurs in our neck, we may have pain in your neck, shoulders, and arms. Besides pain, a herniated disc can lead to numbness, tingling, and weakness.
Initial line treatments are
- Rest
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication
- Exercises or physical therapy
- Selective nerve root block injection
If these modalities doesn’t help and if the patients have persistent pain that is interfering with our quality of life, then surgery is the option.
Discectomy is the most common surgery used for herniated disc in the lumbar region, where the portion of the disc that is causing the pressure on your nerve root is removed. Nowadays we use a smaller incision and special instruments to achieve the same results called as microdiscectomy/ Tubular discectomy. Now we perform only microdiscectomy in all the acute disc prolapse patients.


