Diagnosis & Treatment

A herniated disc can adversely affect your ability to perform everyday activities. If your discomfort isn’t improving with conservative treatments such as bed rest, pain medication, stretching, cold and/or heat therapy, you may be helped by an outpatient procedure called Disc Decompression.

To help in diagnosis, a diagnostic imaging procedure called Discography can be used to help identify which discs are causing problems—helping your doctor prescribe the most effective treatment for relieving your pain.

These minimally invasive solutions complete the continuum of care for patients who haven't responded to conservative therapy but want an alternative to surgery. Discography facilitates diagnostic accuracy and aids in treatment planning, while disc decompression helps reduce pain, shorten recovery time, and return you to your previous levels of activity.^[1][2]

Benefits of disc decompression include:

• Significant pain relief^[3][4]
• Reduced used of pain medication^[3][4]
• Return to previous levels of activity^[3][4]
• Quantifiable disc material removal^[4]
• Less scarring
• Quick recovery: generally 3-5 days
• Low complication and morbidity rates^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}
• Outpatient procedure requiring only local anesthetic alleviates possible complications of open surgery and general anesthesia

Benefits of discography include:

• Images the structural integrity of the disc
• Provides real-time information for detailed diagnostics
• Aids in treatment planning
• Minimally invasive
• Performed on an outpatient basis