Can a Herniated Disc Cause Sciatica?

Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide.  Closer to home, Americans are feeling the pain. At any given time, about 26% of adults in the United States are dealing with low back pain.

While there are many possible causes of low back pain, herniated discs are quite common, as are symptoms of sciatica.

To explore the close link between herniated discs and sciatica, we turn to the experienced team of back pain specialists at Apex Pain Specialists in Chandler, Arizona. With Dr. Maziar Massrour and Dr. Naveen Reddy at the helm, we’ve helped scores of patients to find relief from low back pain, and we feel confident that we can do the same for you.

In the meantime education is important, so we thought we’d highlight the link between disc-related low back pain and sciatica.

When discs degenerate

To connect the dots between herniated discs and sciatica, let’s look at each condition separately first.

Your spine contains 33 vertebrae and 23 intervertebral discs that stretch from the base of your skull to your pelvis. These discs provide critical cushioning and support along your spine, they prevent friction between the bones, and they facilitate range of motion in your back, especially in your lower back.

Over time, these discs can succumb to what we call degenerative disc disease (DDD), which is a universal issue that affects most of us if we’re lucky enough to grow old. In short, discs can break down over time, becoming more brittle and flatter, which leave them open to issues like a herniation.

A herniated or bulging disc is one that pushes out of its intervertebral space, becoming a structural issue in your spine. This issue may or may not lead to symptoms.

Sciatica: A constellation of symptoms

A better way to think about sciatica is as a group of symptoms rather than a condition. Sciatica occurs when something in your spine presses up against your sciatic nerve, which is the largest nerve in the human body. And that something is often a herniated disc.

When a disc in your lumbar spine herniates, it can come into contact with the lumbar nerve roots to create sciatica. With sciatica, your symptoms travel down one side of your body and into one leg if the nerve is pinched on that side. These symptoms include pain and also  numbness and tingling.

Treating disc-related sciatica

As you might imagine, we typically only treat a herniated disc if it’s causing symptoms. And, in many cases, symptoms only arise when the sciatic nerve becomes involved (you can experience non-sciatica symptoms that stay confined to the low back).

If we determine that your symptoms are caused by a herniated disc, we can take steps to relieve the nerve compression through:

• Epidural injections to reduce pain and swelling
• Selective Nerve Root blocks
• Spinal cord stimulation (SCS)
• Physical therapy
• Rest
• Discseel® procedure, which is outpatient

As you can see, we’re well equipped for addressing low back pain of all types, including sciatica related to herniated discs.

If you’d like to figure out whether a herniated disc and sciatica is behind your low back pain (and get on the road to pain-free movement again), please call our office at 480-820-7246 today to schedule a visit. You can also use our online booking tool to request an appointment.