You Are Diagnosed With a Lumbar Herniated Disc With Sciatica, What Next?

Initial Acute Pain relief. This may occurBack Pain Sos Review from medication.The medication may be in the form of a Medrol Dose Pak, which is a burst of Prednisone for a few days and then tapering off to prevent adrenal problems. The Prednisone acts as a hefty anti-inflammatory agent which often decreases the sciatica pain dramatically. Another medication that can be extremely helpful is Lyrica, which is a neuropathic pain medication that can relieve the pain coming from the pinched nerve. Narcotic pain medications and muscle relaxers have their place in the management of pain from a herniated disc. These medications should only be received from one physician and care should be taken not to go over the prescribed dosage.

Mid-term Pain Relief. Physical therapy, Chiropractic Treatment, Acupuncture, Spinal Decompression, and Interventional Pain Treatments have all been shown to help significantly for sciatica pain. This may occur singly or with combination treatments. These treatments may help immediately upon treatment commencing or after a week of trying the Medrol Dose Pak. The only one of these treatments that has shown any evidence of having the disc herniation shift back inside the confines of the disc space is Spinal Decompression. This may occur for a small herniation, but it will not happen for a substantial piece of disc.

Long Term Pain Relief. With a herniated disk, the treatments above may do the trick for pain relief with avoiding surgery. If the pain goes away for a while from epidural injections and spinal decompression for instance, then returns 3 months later, the treatments can be repeated. Having a series of injections every few months is a small price to pay to avoid surgery and the complication profile with injections is rare. The cost of spinal decompression is less than 5% of the cost of spinal surgery.

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