Hi, this video is about the Prolapsed Disc and what it causes which is lower back pain and sciatica. It starts with a movement, and here is a spine, and the movement is usually a twist and a stretch. So you twisted, and you stretched and when you do this movement, the structure that gets stressed is the disc. Here the disc sits, just tucked in between two vertebrae where it acts like a cushion, shock absorber.
So what you do as you do the twist, and the wall of the disc becomes stressed and then it tears. When the tear occurs, the fluid that's in the middle of the disc gets forced into the tear under pressure and this sits off the first kind of pain that you feel. And that pain usually you feel. It's a deep ache, it arises from your back, and it often radiates off into your buttock. This is the classic pain of lower back pain, which many people have felt. But, this is isn't the whole story, because normally over the next little while you make another movement, and the tear -- again a twisting movement, and the tear that was just pathway through the wall extends all the way through the wall. And now what's happened is that the jelly that was on the inside gets forced out. And where it gets forced out is just around the nerve, and here is in this model is a very broccoli colored picture of this jelly that's come out and is sitting right close to the nerve.
This is bright red, and this is absolutely correct because what happens is as the jelly comes out, your body turns on an incredibly powerful inflammatory response almost like lighting a match in the area, and the nerve itself becomes inflamed and irritated. This sets off a totally separate kind of pain, different from the first that deep, dull ache, this pain well we all know it because here is your elbow and there is the nerve that runs under it. If you wrack your funny bone, you set of a shooting funny pain in thin band with numbness and tingling into your fingers. This nerve runs across your buttock, and down your leg. When that becomes irritated, what you feel is a thin band of pain which shoots across your buttock and down your leg with numbness and tingling.
So to summarize, the initial injury causes a small tear in the wall of the disc and this tear sets off the classic pain of lower back pain, which is a deep dull ache which you feel in your back and often radiates off into your buttock. It is fairly localized, but can be very severe.
When the tear extends further, and it grows all the way through the wall, then the jelly that's in middle of the disc gets forced all the way through that, and it comes out and sits around the nerve, irritates the nerve and sets off the second pain, which is the pain of sciatica, and this is a sharp, shooting end of pain that goes all the way across your buttock down your leg, and is often associated with numbness and tingling. So this is the classic picture, this is a presentation of a Prolapsed Disc with dull ache, and shooting pain.
This video is to explain the underlying basis. Our next video is going to be looking at the natural history of this condition, and how you can best manage it and if that doesn't work, what other options of treatment there are. Thank you very much.
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