Degenerative Disc Disease: Treatment

How to Treat it?

While some stages of Degenerative Disc Disorder can be helped with pain medicine, other measures include surgery to replace damaged discs or fusion of the spine. If the back pain is minor, doctors usually prescribe a pain medicine that can be used to tolerate pain. It can also be helped through physical therapy. 

Physical therapy allows you to re-strengthen the spine, and allow for pain to be helped through muscle strength. Other forms of therapy include acupuncture as well. But if the problem were to get worse, surgery would have to be done. One procedure that can be done is replacing the corrupted disc. Surgeons would go and remove the damaged disc and replace it with an artificial one. 

While this procedure is rare, it still can be done in certain circumstances. The most common procedure done for this disease is fusion of bone. The procedure is done by fusing the two vertebrae together in order to save surrounding nerves.

 While this surgery creates some limited movement afterwards, and needs further physical therapy after surgery, it is most widely done.