Mullumbimby Chiropractic
Modern Integrative Chiropractic Care

The human disc is a remarkable structure

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Understanding how a spinal disc works can really help you see how to care for it and prevent injury. We will also examine some chiropractic treatment strategies for disc problems.

The disc is the shock absorber between each movable vertebrae in our spine. In fact discs make up over 20% of the height of the spinal chord in a healthy adult.

The best way to picture a disc is imagine you slice an onion into thin rings. Now take one of these thin slices and remove the inner 1/3 and crack an egg into it.

The outer 2/3 is a tough piece of fibro-cartilage known as annulus fibrosis (shown in gray). The inner 1/3 is made up of an egg-like jelly known as the nuclease pulposis (shown in yellow).

As the force of gravity or any other shock travels through the spine, pressure is transferred to the fluid filled nucleus pulposis.  Because liquid does not compress much the nucleus pulposis starts to bulge outwards. This outward pressure is (hopefully) held in check by the circular onion ring shaped fibers of the Annulus Fibrosis.

So that’s what happens when it works right. What happens when things go wrong ?

The disc can be damaged by a number of things but the biggest thing we see as chiropractors is a disc injury from bending and twisting. Remember how the disc is designed to be strong in compression?

Well what happens when we bend forward and rotate  (the classic starting the lawn mower injury)?

Here the annular fibers are strained just like wringing a wet towel and they begin to tear. When the disc tears it begins to swell and bulge. This situation is known as a disc bulge.

To see what happens next click the link to page 2 below this text.

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