Dr. Butwell Treats Disc Herniation Pain

March 26, 2019

“You have to know where you came from to know where you are going.”

It’s true for all of us personally, familiarly, and professionally. It’s true for medicine – allopathic and alternative - too. It is true for the comprehension of the disc and the spine it holds. Awareness of Georgetown back pain keeps evolving, and one of the major milestones was relatively new in our human history. Dr. Butwell discloses past and current findings on the disc and the back pain it causes as well as the Georgetown chiropractic care that relieves that back pain.

HISTORY OF THE DISC HERNIATION

The knowledge of disc herniation as a compressive force on spinal nerves causing back pain and leg pain is a relatively recent wonder. Remember that the spine changes as it matures. The spinal disc’s shape and tissue composition changes. The disc’s center, nucleus pulposus, changes and decreases in size. (1) We know differently today, but in 1909, the disc herniation was assumed to be a tumor. In 1930, a neurologist (T Alajouanine) and surgeon (D Petit-Dutaillis) explained their surgical experiences with disc herniations that were initially studied by a pathologist named CG Schmorl. But it wasn’t until 1934 when WJ Mixter and JS Barr circulated the first report of surgically taking out disc herniations in 19 patients. (2) (Unless it is published, it didn’t happen…and you do not get credit for it!) So it was fewer than 100 years ago that the disc herniation was named a disc herniation and identified as such! Allopathy and alternative medicine like chiropractic have risen to the challenge in those intervening years.

ALLOPATHY and ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Allopathic medicine is usually centered on the disease and has a tendency to concentrate on symptom-specific treatment (usually pharmacological or invasive) to remove the cause of pain. Alternative medicine usually focused on a whole-body approach and has a tendency to concentrate on treatments that increase the body’s capability to heal itself (herbal supplements, Reiki, chiropractic, Tai chi, acupuncture, etc.) to decrease pain. (3) Nowadays, integrative medicine is escalating in its appreciation and utilization of the best of both.

CHIROPRACTIC TREATMENT FOR DISC HERNIATION

Chiropractic care is comprehensive care for spine pain conditions. For the disc herniation resulting in low back pain, neck pain, leg pain and/or arm pain, gentle flexion distraction spinal manipulation is easing. A new study states that horizontal traction was very effective in producing a significant enlargement of average lumbar spine disc height and reduction in lumbar lordosis. (4) Such is available with the Cox Technic System of Spinal Pain Management utilizing long-y axis distraction. Dr. Butwell specializes in this treatment. Cox Technic is depicted as a non-thrust low velocity variable amplitude spinal manipulation that manages low back pain non-pharmacologically. It’s shown to decrease pain in chronic low back pain patients. (5) It reduces intradiscal pressure in the disc to as low as -192mmHg, opens the spinal canal area by 28%, and enlarges disc height by 17%. (6) Dr. Butwell eases back pain due to disc herniation very effectively.

CONTACT Dr. Butwell

Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. Jake Bohnen on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. He presents a case of a disc herniation he treated with Cox® Technic and reduced pain…and the herniation on MRI!

Schedule a non-surgical Georgetown chiropractic care appointment with Dr. Butwell today. Together, we’ll figure out where you have been on your back pain journey and set a path of correction and control for its future with the most appropriate treatment possible.

Dr. Butwell gently treats the disc herniation causing back pain.

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