Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD)

Our spine is made out of vertebrates and soft cushion in between. When the spine weakens, it allows this flexible area to be damaged, allowing the leakage of the gel within the spine to bulge. This is called a Herniated Disc. It can occur at all levels of the spine, where the lumbar spine being the most common. Secondly, this event seldomly occurs in the cervical spine, which is the neck area, and in the upper back, which is part of the thoracic spinal area.

Intervertebral disc degeneration is a common disorder that is characterized by the progressive degeneration of the intervertebral discs, resulting in deformity and dysfunction. The structural and functional integrity of the spine in essence is compromised due to several issues, including inflammation, diminished oxygen, and deficiency of essential water and sugars, which are key components of intervertebral discs balance and proper function. In the United States, roughly 5% of the population experience chronic lower back pain problems, much of which is associated with the disorder. Intervertebral disc degeneration develops with age, and tends to be more prevalent in people who have problems with

Spinal Stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal which can cause compression of spinal nerves or spinal cord. Cervical spine stenosis in the neck can cause pain and weakness in the shoulders and arms. Lumbar spine stenosis may cause back pain radiating to buttocks and legs with possible weakness, especially on walking. Stenosis is more common in older patients, often due to osteoarthritis. Treatment involves painkillers, physiotherapy and

Liuke M., Soloviena S., Lamminem A., Luoma K., Leino-Arjas P., Luukkonen R. and Riihimaki H. (2005) Disc degeneration of the lumbar spine in relation to overweight. International Journal of Obesity. 29 (5).p. 903-908.

However, there are some important concepts such as avoidance of axial loading when prescribing exercises to patients with disc pathology as this is strongly related to degenerative changes although there is no gold standard tool for measuring lumbar compression load (Hung, Y.J.et al., 2014). Hours spent sitting significantly increased the prevalence of disc herniation. Sitting is also associated with loss of the lumbar lordosis, intervertebral disc (IVD) compression, and height loss, possibly increasing the risk of lower back pain (Fryer, J.C., Quon, J. A., & Smith, F. W. (2010). Hence, offering variable positions when exercising patients best minimizes seated exercises. Little is known about the correlation between the extent of disc herniation and clinical signs and symptoms, neither were there any reported correlation between improvement in functions nor the pain reduction as visually reported, other than the reduction in sizes of disc herniation among the four segment levels (L2 –L3 = n 6, L3-L4 n=17, L4- L5 n= 51 c, and L5- S1 n= 4), indicative of morphological regression of herniated disk during their repeated MR as reported by the research of Unlu, Tasci, Tarhan, Pabuscu, & Islak in 2008. Hence, physical assessment and a thorough physical therapy

If you have a chronic pain in the neck, you may want to seek out expert cervical disc surgeons. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, cervical discs between the vertebrae wear and degenerate with age. When they start to bulge, collapse, or wear away, your vertebrae or even part of the damaged disc can press on your spinal nerves or spinal cord, causing neck pain and stiffness, weakness in the limbs, arm numbness, and possibly even headaches. While Web MD recommends exercise to strengthen the neck and shoulder muscles to alleviate neck pain, when a cervical disc is worn away, many times the only option is surgery.

An injury that places sudden pressure on the disks that cushion the bones of your lower spine.

Scoliosis is one of the big causes for costochondritis. There are also some other things that bring along costochondritis. Birth defects, infections, tumors, family history, or genetics can also cause costochondritis. With scoliosis there can be two different kinds of scoliosis spine you can have, structural spine or nonstructural spine. A structural spine is the curve of the spine is rigid and can’t be reversed- caused- cerebral palsy (impair control of movement of muscle weakening and become less flexible over time.) A nonstructural spine is it works normally, but looks curved. This happens because one leg could be longer than the other, muscle spasms, and inflammation, usually when these things are treated or fixed scoliosis goes away. (Web

This condition does not necessarily cause pain, however, when this bone growth impinges on the delicate spinal cords and nerves, pain ensue. Desiccation of the spinal discs, in relation to aging, is another feature of cervical spondylosis. The spinal vertebrae consist of thick, pad-like cushions that main tasks are to absorb impacts based upon our daily activities. This gel-like substance in between the spinal bones dries out over time as the aging progress. On younger adults the condition occurs due to physical injuries obtained. The consequences of fluid loss in spinal disk will inflect pain to the individual depending on movements and

Loss of movement, loss of sensation, including the ability to feel heat, cold and touch, loss of bowel or bladder control, exaggerated reflex activities or spasms, changes in sexual function, sexual sensitivity and fertility, pain or an intense stinging sensation caused by damage to the nerve fibers in spinal cord, difficulty breathing, coughing or clearing secretions from lungs.

The first symptoms of AS usually appear in late adolescence or early adulthood. The initial symptom includes a dull pain presenting as back pain or stiffness. Neck pain is seen in advanced disease. There will be loss of spinal mobility with restriction of ROM. The most serious complication of AS is spinal fracture. Even minor trauma can cause severe damage. The cervical spine is the most susceptible fracture; which can result in quadriplegia. 37

The cervical and lumbar regions of the vertebral column are most likely to experience a herniated disc. This is so, because these regions have the least structural support, while having to endure the most strain. Since the nerves that supply the upper limb are found in the cervical region of the spinal cord, cervical herniated discs may cause pain here. Muscle weakness in the upper limb and neck pain may also occur as a result of injury to the cervical discs. Injury to the lumbar region typically causes lower back pain. If the herniated disc affects nerve fibers, pain that radiates through the leg and down to the foot may occur. This condition is known as sciatica

Cervical degenerative disc disease is less common than the lumbar area and it often called cervical spondylosis, the stresses of the changes in ligaments and facet joints to enlarge become hypertrophy as they need to spread the load over a larger area leading to compression of the spinal cord and nerves causing some symptoms that can be range from mild to severe this is starting with pain and over the years the symptom gets worse like spread out of the pain from the region that is affected to shoulders and base of the skull, also down from arms to the hands ending in fingers and this is because of compression to the nerves that courses down to supply the hands, the pain may get worse

Also, changes occur on disks that become inflexible and hard, causing fire rings around them and there are protrusions that pressure on surrounding structures. Spondylosis attack on the area of the spine and neck is very persistent and unpleasant disease. Initially, the pain occurs occasionally, have low intensity and after a while disappears. However, if the disease continues to progress, (usually happens), the situation is getting worse, and the patient is unable to perform everyday activities.

Summary of Background Data. Herniation disc is the situation in which the disc tears. The deterioration of the intervertebral disc has as a result the distraction of the architecture of the disc. As a result of the distraction of the disc that will lead to pain, limitation of movement or even to disability