Don’t run to for disc pain – non-surgical treatment of herniated discs – Brief Article
Low back pain affects almost everyone. Sometimes back pain originates from herniated or bulging spinal discs impinging on nerves. While there are 300,000 disc repairs performed annually in the United States, some discs heal on their own.
To learn more about why this happens, researchers studied key interactions between macrophages (one of the clean-up cells in the body) and enzymes necessary for the process. Without certain enzymes (matrilysin and stromelysin) the macrophage cells cannot do their work. More research in this area may lead to treatment that can accelerate the process of non-surgical healing of the herniated disc. For the millions of “slipped discs” out there, that would be very good news indeed. (Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2000, Vol. 105, No. 2, pp. 143-150; 133-141)
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