Overview

What is Degenerative Disk Disease?

Degenerative disk disease is a condition in which ordinary changes in your spine disks become painful. Not by name, but indeed, this is not really a disease. Degenerative disk disease is a condition caused over time due to injuries, sports, daily activities, or if a spinal disk dries out and shrinks.

What are the symptoms of degenerative disk disease?

This condition can result from various reasons. The most common symptoms are neck and back pain, in which you may experience that:

• It comes and goes or has periods of weeks or months.
• It may also make you feel numbness or tingling in the arms and legs.
• Radiates down to your buttocks and lower back.
• Feels worse with sitting, bending, or lifting.

What are the causes of degenerative disk disease?

Spinal disk wear is a perfectly normal aspect of aging. Almost everyone experiences some disk degeneration after age 40, but not everybody experiences pain.

You may have pain if your spinal disks:

• Dry out: Your disks have a water-based softcore. The water in the core evaporates naturally with age, causing the disks to gradually thin out and lose their shock-absorbing ability.
• Tear or crack: You may develop small cracks in your spinal disks. Frequently, the tears run along nerves. Tears can be really painful, even for minor tears. In that case, the outer wall of your spinal disk cracks open-your disk may protrude out of place that is called a herniated disk. As your disk protrudes out of its normal position, it can compress a spinal nerve.

How do doctors diagnose degenerative disk disease?

To diagnose degenerative disk disease, the doctor probably will first ask you for information about symptoms. Questions like the following may be asked:

• When do you feel the pain?
• Where do you feel the pain?
• What is the most annoying activity causing pain?
• Which activities have a tendency to reduce the pain?
• Were you injured or involved in an accident that caused your pain?
• Do you have any symptoms such as tingling and numbness?
• How far can you walk?

Your doctor may make X-rays, CT, or MRI scans of your body. The tests can help your doctor show where the disks are positioned and what they look like. Your provider can also use a physical examination in order to determine the nature and function of your :

• Nerve function: Your provider might use a reflex hammer to check your reactions. Poor or no reaction may mean you have damaged or compressed nerves.
• Pain: Your provider may press on certain regions of your back to assess your pain level.
• Strength: Muscle weakness or shrinking (atrophy) may indicate nerve damage or degenerated disks.

How is degenerative disk disease treated?

Your doctor typically starts by prescribing non-invasive treatments. Your treatment may also involve:

• Physical therapy: Performing strengthening and stretching exercises with a qualified healthcare provider.
• Drugs: Using NSAIDs, muscle relaxants or steroids.
• Steroid injections: Injecting drugs near your spinal nerves, disk or joints to help minimize inflammation and pain.
• Radiofrequency neurotomy: This is a treatment using electrical currents for burning sensory nerves and preventing pain signals from being relayed to the brain.

Can I prevent degenerative disk disease?

Spinal degeneration is capable of being prevented or slowed with lifestyle changes. Some of them are as follows:

• Maintaining a healthy body weight.
• Abstinence from or quitting smoking.
• Regular exercise to enhance strength and flexibility.

What is the prognosis of degenerative disk disease?

Most patients also resort to nonsurgical and home care solutions in the long term to manage pain. If you experience moderate to severe back pain, you will need to undergo treatment incessantly to prevent aggravation of pain.

Most patients with surgical intervention for degenerative disk disease are pain-free in the long term. To keep your back healthy and strong after surgery, you'll want to continue to exercise and stretch.

What are the complications of degenerative disk disease?

Degenerated disks can put you at an increased risk for other spinal conditions. Some common spine problems include:

• Osteoarthritis.
• Scoliosis.
• Spinal stenosis.
• Spondylolisthesis.
• Spondylolysis.

What else do I need to discuss with my physician?

You may want to ask your healthcare provider:

• What is the most common cause of degenerative disk disease?
• How can I delay the progression of the disease?
• What nonsurgical treatments will most likely alleviate pain?
• What will happen if I decline surgery?
• How can I avoid the recurrence of pain after surgery?

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