Chapter 2:  Treatment Of Pain

Your goal with treating a herniated disc will always be to minimize the pain that you are in, but long term goals should also be evident.  Treating your pain is an important step, but you will also want to get your body back to the shape that it should be in so as to return to your normal activities without prolonged absence.  In addition, you should have the goal of preventing any type of re-injury to your back.  Doing so will help to prevent or lessen the risk of disability.

·        50 percent of people that have an inflammation that causes pain will see improvement to normal activity within one month. 

Those that have pain that lasts longer than this will generally see improvement before six months time.  Only a slim ten percent will actually have pain that lasts beyond six months, which is the necessary timeframe for the consideration of surgery to treat the injury.  In other words, you are likely to see improvement from your herniated disc and this will likely improve within a month's time.

The good news is that many times a herniated disc will fully heal on its own without any type of treatment from you, besides not further straining the injury.  This happens because the body will absorb the broken down jelly like interior of the sack.  This process is called resorption. 

With all of these facts you can see why doctors prefer not to have to resort to surgical treatment of the condition, but would rather allow the body and other treatments to heal the problem on its own.  Surgery is not always successful and has additional risks for it.  The good news is that you can recover on your own!