Are you suffering from intense low back pain, maybe you are having severe pain down your leg?

You could be experiencing a Lumbar Disc Herniation?

What Causes Lumbar Herniation?

Watch this video to learn more. Can you do me a favor and please subscribe to our channel. We provide content on holistic health and wellness, physical therapy and pilates. What causes a Herniated Lumbar Disc?

By the end of this you will have a much better understanding of what causes a Lumbar Disc Herniation.

My name is Dr Andy Tseng, physical & occupational therapist and clinical pilates instructor and I’ve helped many patients with a herniated disc in the lumbar region get back to the activities they love.

Comment below and tell me what you learned from this video. Be on the lookout for the next video for our back pain awareness month at CORE.

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All right, bye now.

So now that you have pain running down your leg... let's talk a little bit more about sciatica and a herniated lumbar disc.

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So what is a herniated lumbar disc and why do I have pain running down my leg? Well by the end of this video you'll have a much better understanding of what a herniated disc is and why it is happening. 

My name is Stephen Dunn. I'm a holistic physical therapist and I've been helping patients with this condition since the late 1990s. I would love to help you as well. All right, so let's talk about it.

What is a Lumbar Herniation?

So the first question is: what is lumbar herniation? Okay so there are two lumbar vertebrae, we're going to show those guys right here and right here. Okay, there are two lumbar vertebrae and between that lumbar vertebra is a disc...okay and the disc sits right here between those guys and I'm going to hold that like that. This little yellow piece right here is representing the nerve and this again is the disc, the intervertebral disc and this is the vertebra.

We're just going to say L4 and L5, the lumbar 4 and lumbar 5. And if this was the sacrum, I'm sorry the pelvis has the sacrum at the bottom. These guys will be sitting right here, all right, with a disc in between them as well. So just to kind of get an orientation of where we're at, what we're talking about.

So that is the lumbar disc. Herniation is going to be where when this disc is no longer maintained within its border, okay. Now I'm going to pop this one out and I'm going to slide this one in, okay. So what this is showing is a herniation of the disc.

All right, so right here, that red piece that's popping out. It should all be contained within the space but right here it's popping out and as it pops out it hits... let me come up to here as it pops out it hits this nerve... okay and let's say this is lumbar four and five like we'd already mentioned, well that will go down and create the sciatic nerve and then once the sciatic nerve, once several nerve roots like L4-5, S1, S2 come together they merge the sciatic nerve and they go all the way and they start up into your deep buttocks and it goes all the way down your leg, all the way to the heel underneath the bottom of the foot. 

What is a Sciatica?

So that is in a nutshell now answer the question of what is both the herniated disc and sciatica. So you can have a herniated disc and it'd be pinching the nerve right here... let me get that set up again so you can... have the herniated disc pinching a nerve right here and it only hurt right here but you can also have a herniated disc pinching a nerve right here.

It only hurt down in your calf or your heel and it actually not hurting your back or you can have a situation where it hurts in your back like like crazy and down your leg like crazy and so that's kind of the what a herniation is and why and why the sciatic nerve and why it sends symptoms down your legs. 

Why Do We Have Pain Down Your Leg?

It's because it's traveling down that sciatic nerve but it could also be coming from some pinching of muscles in other areas but more times than not it starts up in the spine itself where that bulge is occurring or where that hernia is occurring.

Now let's talk about the hernia for a second. Here's the disc removed and here's a normal disc, normal disc height, and then it's showing that bulge and so this is kind of some old terminology from back in the 90s but I'm going to use it because I think it makes sense.

In the center of the disc is water like material and the edges of the disc are these rings called the annulus fibers. If you were to compress or bite down into this side of a jelly doughnut then the jelly tends to squish out the back. That's an analogy that was used back in the 90s. I don't know if it's still used that much anymore, it probably isn't.

Most things from the 90s aren't used anymore, but anyway. That's kind of that like the bulging or that hernia. It's really just the water material from the inside of the disc that's seeping out and creating this hernia. So that is what a lumbar herniation is. I've discussed a little bit of sciatica and then why the pain is down the leg. 

It would really help you with everything we're talking about. It will help with a herniated disc, we've talked about lumbar spondylolisthesis in recent videos. This book will go through and teach you a way to help both of those conditions as well as spinal stenosis, all those conditions with an exercise program. 

Call 512-215-4227 to learn more about our P2 Program to help Back Pain…

Thanks for watching guys and be on the lookout for more videos explaining what is disc herniation is and things you can do to help it and other conditions of the back.

Thanks, guys. Y'all take care and we'll see you soon.