A disc has a tough outer ring and a soft center. When the ring tears, the center pushes outward, and if it lands against a nerve root the symptoms show up wherever that nerve goes. Nothing has slipped out of place, which is why the phrase people arrive with rarely matches what is happening.
That distinction matters for treatment. You are not putting a bone back; you are unloading an inflamed nerve and giving the torn ring time to quiet down. Over months the herniated material shrinks and the inflammation around it settles, and that is usually what improvement is actually made of.
A disc announces itself through one nerve rather than all over. Pain that runs below the knee in a band, numbness in a specific patch of skin, and weakness in one particular movement — lifting the front of the foot, or gripping — are the findings that point at a disc.
Coughing, sneezing and getting out of a car are the ordinary movements that give it away, because each one raises pressure through the disc. Loss of bladder or bowel control, or numbness in the groin, is an emergency department visit rather than an appointment here.
The Denver metro is covered from Downtown Denver, Lowry, Central Park, Northglenn off I-25 at 120th, Lakewood, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, SE Aurora and Southlands. Each has Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Acupuncture in the same building.
That matters more for a disc than for most things, because the plan changes often in the first month. When the leg symptoms move, the physician, the therapist and the chiropractor are reading the same chart that afternoon rather than trading letters.
Where the nerve pain persists, an epidural steroid injection is placed around the affected root. In the Denver metro that is done in office at Northglenn, 11990 Grant Street, or at Lowry on specific days. What the injection buys is a window in which the rehabilitation can actually be done — it is not the treatment on its own.
An MRI is ordered when there is weakness rather than only pain, when a reasonable course has not moved it, or when a procedure needs the level confirmed.
Most major commercial plans are accepted and most Medicare Advantage plans are in network in Colorado. Benefits are verified before the first appointment.
Where a collision is involved, care is billed to med-pay, to a lien where an attorney is acting, or to a health plan. Whether a disc change on a scan is new is a clinical question the physician addresses in the record, using the examination alongside the imaging. No referral is needed and appointments are usually available within the same week.
For the condition itself see herniated disc; for the services, Pain Management in Denver and Chiropractic care in Denver.
Every clinic below has Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management on one chart, so care can move between them without a new referral.
Downtown out through the north, west, south and east suburbs.
Academy, InterQuest and Tenderfoot cover the north, central and south of the city.
Harmony in Fort Collins and our Greeley clinic serve Larimer and Weld counties.
Across the Valley, from the West Valley through Phoenix to the East Valley.
Not in the way the phrase suggests. The herniated material shrinks over time and the inflammation around the nerve settles, and that is usually what the improvement consists of.
Most people can, with changes to how long they sit, how they lift and how often they get up. What those changes should be depends on which level and which nerve are involved.
Any of them. Downtown, Lowry, Central Park, Northglenn, Lakewood, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, SE Aurora and Southlands all treat disc problems.
Not usually. It is ordered when there is weakness, when symptoms are not improving on a reasonable course, or when an injection is being planned and the level has to be confirmed.
In office at our Northglenn clinic on Grant Street, or at our Lowry clinic on specific days, as an outpatient appointment, by the physician who examined you.
No. Most disc problems are managed without it. Progressive weakness, or loss of bladder or bowel control, is what changes that conversation.
Often weeks rather than days, and the leg usually quiets before the back does. Progress is tracked at each visit rather than assumed from an average.
Yes. It goes to med-pay, to a lien where an attorney is involved, or to your health plan. The route is set up at the first visit.
Mountain View Pain Center treats a herniated disc across the Denver metro, with Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Acupuncture in the same clinic and on the same chart.
