Herniated Disc Pain Relief

The Top 3 Things You Can Do At Home For Fast Herniated Disc Pain Relief, And With Little Or No Money

1.  Ice
Ice is the fastest way to herniated disc pain relief.  Always, and only use ice if you are in pain.  Pain would be defined as a sharp pain, burning, stabbing, throbbing, etc.

When you’re using ice, consistency is the key if you want it to help you.  I’ve worked with a lot of patients who suffer with this condition, and I can tell you from experience that when someone says that ice didn’t help them, the reason is that they weren’t consistent with using it, meaning they didn’t follow the rules I will outline here.

Now, this may sound strange to some because many people believe you should put heat on something that is painful.  Why would you use ice instead of heat?

In fact, if you use heat with this condition, not only will you not feel relief but you may even get worse.  Here’s the reason why you want to use ice instead of heat.

Herniated Disc Pain Relief: What is Inflammation?

When you experience pain, your body is going through a process called inflammation.  And more specifically, if you look at how the disc acts when it herniates, this will make more sense.

The disc is actually made up of a firm outer covering called the Annulus, and a soft jelly center called the Nucleus.  With a herniated disc, the outer covering tears and the jelly starts to shift towards the area of weakness, causing a bulging within the wall of the disc.

Believe it or not, the discs of the spine are actually designed to not feel pain, which makes sense when you look at the major purpose of the disc, which is to act as a shock-absorber between the bones of the spine.  If the disc could feel pain, you would be hurting all day long.

So, if that’s true, why can this be such a painful condition?  The answer is because the disc will usually bulge and apply pressure onto one of the spinal nerves.  These nerves control everything inside of the body, and they are very sensitive.

So, if you have a disc applying pressure on a nerve, the nerve will become aggravated and this is what will cause you to feel pain and other symptoms associated with a herniated disc.

In addition to that, when the nerve is injured in this case, the body will go through a process called inflammation.  In this process, the body will send blood to the injured nerve, which is intended to help heal the damaged nerve.

However, all this does is cause additional swelling around the nerve, and the increase in blood causes the area to become very hot.

So, think about it – if the area is hot because of the extra blood in the area, do you really want to put something hot on top of it?  Absolutely Not!

If you put heat on this condition, it will cause more swelling which will cause more pain.  This is why you want to use ice.  Ice will numb the nerve, which will provide herniated disc pain relief, but also it will slow down the inflammatory process and calm the area down so you don’t have to be in pain as long.

Herniated Disc Pain Relief: Rules for using Ice

Here are the rules that you need to follow when using ice if you want this to be effective for herniated disc pain relief:

Apply the ice directly to the skin.  Although this sounds uncomfortable, the results will come faster if you do it this way because the nerve is very deep.

Use real ice or an insulated ice pack.  Then, leave the ice on for 15 minutes or until you feel numbness (whichever comes first), and then repeat the ice treatment every hour for best results.

This is where I say that consistency is the key – if you’re in a lot of pain, you really need to do the ice treatment every hour that you’re awake (a minimum of 5 – 8 times during the day).

Typically, it will take 3 or 4 treatments before you notice any relief at all, and if you’re consistent, you should notice a big difference after about 3 days of doing the ice treatments consistently.

Where do you use the ice?  First, you want to use it over the injured disc, but also you want to use the ice over any painful areas if the pain travels away from your back.

2.  Be Aware of Your Sleeping Position

All healing occurs while you are sleeping!  This is why it is so important that you find a way to be comfortable while you are trying to sleep.

There are 2 positions that will usually help with herniated disc pain relief.  These 2 positions only apply if your herniated disc is in your lower back.  If the problem is in your neck or upper back, you need to be sure that you are only sleeping on 1 pillow, and you should not sleep on your stomach (leaving your head in a turned position at night will cause further problems).

If the problem is in your low back, here are the 2 positions that usually make a difference:

The first is laying on your back with a couple of pillows under the knees to elevate your legs.  This will relieve some of the pressure from your low back, but if you don’t like that position, you can try laying on your side with a pillow between your knees.  This position also reduces the pressure on the lower back.

3.  Bounce on a Therapy Ball

This step should only be started after you begin to experience herniated disc pain relief from the previous steps.

First, you need to have a therapy ball, which is one of those large balls you see in health clubs or physical therapy clinics.  All you need to do is to sit on the ball and GENTLY bounce up and down for just 5 minutes each day.

When you’re bouncing, make sure that you keep your head looking straight ahead and your arms down to your side.

What is the purpose of this exercise?  The answer is something called imbibition.  The nucleus of the disc is really important because it stores oxygen and nutrients for the disc to heal properly if it is ever injured.

The problem is that there isn’t a lot of blood supply to the disc, so the only way to replenish this oxygen and nutrients for proper healing is through physically pumping the disc.  This is what imbibition is, and this is what the exercise accomplishes.

So, when you are bouncing on the ball, you are pumping fresh oxygen and nutrients into the disc for faster healing.

These 3 tips will help to provide you with herniated disc pain relief, but there are other steps that you need to be aware of if you want to continue the healing process.  If you would like to learn more about what you can do for relief, please click the following link (Herniated Disc Pain Relief).

Herniated Disc Pain Relief