A bulging disc in your neck can be painful but luckily there are many things you can do to help alleviate the pain. A bulging disc occurs when the center of the disc bulges outside of its normal position and in some cases seeps out if the outer wall tears open. The reason why this causes pain is because the resulting bulge will place pressure upon your nerves which site extremel close to your spinal cord. Depending upon the location and severity of the pain you will have many options to help you recover.
Medication
After rest, pain medication will be your first choice to help alleviate the pain you may be experiencing. In addition to the pain caused by a bulging disc you may also be feeling numbness and a pins and needles feeling in your extremities. If the pain is minor then a simple over the counter pain medication would suffice. In cases of more severe pain then your doctor may prescribe a more powerful medication to help you in the short term. Prescribed pain medications should only be taken for a short period of time due to the risk of dependency caused by these medications. It’s important to remember that using medication will not eliminate all of the symptoms you may be experiencing but they will surely make you feel more comfortable.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy can be very helpful in recovering from a bulging disc. The type of physical therapy will vary based on the severity of the bulging disc and the patients capabilities. One of the most popular types of therapy is called traction which is used to help open the joints in your neck and decompress the discs. Traction has been shown to provide great results in patients suffering from bulging discs with up to 90% of patients getting their discs to return to their natural positions. In other cases simple exercises such as marching in place on a trampoline can help stimulate blood flow into the tissue surrounding the bulging disc. You can also work to strengthen the surrounding muscle tissue which stimulates the flow of blood and nutrients into the injured area and also works to prevent future injuries. Many times this type of injury is caused by inactivity causing the surrounding muscles to weaken over time allowing and injury to occur. By strengthening the surrounding muscles you can prevent this from happening again in the future.
Surgery
In some instances where other treatment options have failed to correct the problem then surgery may become an option. A spinal surgeon would perform the surgery and most patients would expect to get good results. During surgery the surgeon would remove the bulging disc and fuse the vertebrae together removing the empty space created by removing the disc. In some cases the bone may not be fused but allowed to naturally heal by the body. It’s important to remember that surgery will not always completely eliminated the problem and can create more problems for the patient. The side effects can sometimes out number the benefits so this should always be considered.
