Diagnosis By A Doctor

How will your doctor know what is wrong with your back and how can he or she do anything to improve it?  The first step is to consider the amount of pain that you are in.  For example, while it may be a disc in your back causing the problem, it almost always is pain that is associated with other areas as well. 

Lower back pain, pain in the legs and even pain in your hip region are all similar and can be an indication of a problem with the discs.

In order to understand your condition, the doctor will talk to you about your family's history and will examine the locations and intensity of the pain you feel.  In doing so, he will pinpoint exactly what is the problem, potentially. 

Diagnostic testing will reveal more in depth understandings of the pain that you are dealing with.  More so, your ability to function is defined here.  There are several key factors that are looked for by doctors for pain that is determined to be from discs in the spinal column. 

A Pinched Nerve:  
A situation in which the disc space (between two discs) is not causing the pain.  Here, the sack of fluid here is bulging which is causing a nerve in the spine to be pinched.  The fluid sack itself is not where the pain is.  This is also called radicular pain.  Here, you would have nerve root pain which is also known as sciatica when you have a lumbar herniated disc.  When you have pain in your arm, this is caused by a cervical herniated disc.