Dr. Jeff Langmaid explains annular tears, which are cracks in the outer ring of spinal discs. They cause severe pain and tend to come back. Conservative treatment like chiropractic care, light exercise, and traction can restore mobility and lower recurrence risk.
Hi, my name is Dr. Jeff Langmaid, and if you've suffered from an annular tear on a disc in your back, I want to talk through a little bit about what that means and also some things you can do to get on the road to recovery. So an antler tear happens on the discs in your spine. The discs sit between the bones or vertebra of your entire spine, and the disc acts as a shock absorber. It takes the impact or load when we jump, when we walk, or when we sit. And also, every segment moves a little bit, which, when they're combined and add up, they result in all this wondrous motion we can do with our spine. But as we age and encounter injuries, sometimes small micro tears can happen on the outside of your discs. Those outside rings of your spinal discs are called the annulus fibrosis. And that's why a tear in that portion is called an annular tear. When an annular tear occurs, it does not mean that all the jelly of the inside of your disc has gone outside or that it's completely deflated. Your disc is pretty tough. But what a tear can do is cause immobilizing, debilitating pain. Many patients that I've spoken with, when an annular tear occurs, they just lock up and they're unable to move. But after a few days, they get slowly back to their normal patterns of life. The challenge is, once you have an annular tear, it's very likely that that's going to happen again. That's why conservative measures like chiropractic care, light exercise, sometimes traction or therapy can be a great way to keep your spine mobile and hopefully decrease the opportunity for that tear to come back and happen again. So that's a little bit about annular tears. My name is Dr. Jeff Langmaid.
