Disc injuries
Navigating Disc Pain: A Safe Path to Recovery
Hearing words like "slipped disc," "herniated disc," or "disc bulge" can sound frightening. It's often associated with severe pain and a fear of movement. The good news is that the vast majority of spinal disc injuries heal well with the right conservative management.
A disc injury is a common and in most cases a highly treatable condition. With great guidance, you can effectively manage your pain, restore your function, and learn how to protect your spine for the future. At Velca, we provide a safe, reassuring, and evidence-based approach to your recovery.
Understanding Spinal Disc Injuries
Your spinal discs are the shock-absorbing cushions between your vertebrae. They have a tough, fibrous outer layer and a soft, gel-like centre. An injury occurs when this outer layer is damaged, allowing the inner gel to bulge or protrude, which can sometimes press on a nearby nerve root.
Causes: Disc issues can be caused by a single event, like lifting something heavy with poor technique, or they can develop gradually from years of repetitive strain or poor posture.
Symptoms: This can range from localised back or neck pain to symptoms of nerve irritation, such as pain radiating down an arm or leg (sciatica), numbness, tingling, or muscle weakness.
How Velca Guides Your Recovery
Our combined approach is multi-modal, controlled, and focused on empowering you. Aggressive treatment is not appropriate for acute disc injuries.
Safe and Thorough Assessment: Our first step is to conduct a careful examination to understand the nature of your injury and rule out any serious issues.
Pain Relief and De-loading: We teach you how to find positions of relief and how to move in ways that don't aggravate your pain. Gentle, hands-on techniques can also help to calm surrounding muscle spasms.
Directional Preference Exercises (McKenzie Method): We guide you to find specific, gentle movements that help to reduce and "centralise" your pain—moving it out of your limb and back towards the spine. This is a powerful tool for self-management and a key indicator of healing.
Core Stability and Postural Re-education: As your pain settles, the focus shifts to the most critical phase: building strength. We will design a progressive program to strengthen the deep core and back muscles that support and protect your spine, significantly reducing your risk of re-injury.
Specialist referral: Should you not recover in the expected time, or worsen due to further injury, then we will refer you to the appropriate medical specialist to get looked at further. This normally involves having an MRI scan. We work with a multitude of orthopaedic and MSK specialists that can help with injections or even surgery, should it be needed.