1. Medications

Taking pills, needling and using Chinese plaster are all concluded in medication therapy. Mild pain medications can reduce inflammation and pain when taken properly. The main medicine are: Aspirin, Indometacin (Indomethacin,Indomee,Indocid), ibuprofen, naproxen, Spansule Capsulae Ibuprofeni, Compound. Aminophenazone (Antondine), Votalin, Tramadol, Bucinperazine, Pethidine, Ketorolac Tromethamine, compound Salvia Miltiorrhiza lnjection, Prednisone, Dexamethasone，vitamin B1，B12，E，C，Adenosine Triphosphate，Inosine, muscle relaxants, diuretics and dehydrated medicine. Medical therapy is very effective at the early stage of illness, but as a subsidiary treatment method it has exotic side effects. So, it is not good for any patient to take medicine for long time. Form the picture on the right, it is no difficult to see that the adult's blood vessels around lumbar disc have almost blocked after long time pressure. The main nutrition of the lumbar disc is from the soft tissues around it. Medicine is transported by blood flow, so it is very difficult to transport the medicine to the sick lumbar disc through blood vessel so that the medicine could hardly make any curative effect to the lumbar disc but only kill inflammation and pain of the tissues around. To the pathogenesis of lumbar disc herniations, medications will help with pain control, but they will not stop degeneration.

2. Physical Therapy

Most of the lumbar disc disease patients have long pain history. Because the pain is not serious at the early stage, so some patients used to do some massage to reduce the pain. In fact massage and other physical treatment could only improve blood flow and kill the pain but cure the disease. Lots of massagers are not professional on lumbar disease and lack of medical knowledge; it is no doubt that there come lots of accidents which could deteriorate patient's condition. Physician suggests that when choosing a personal massager, he or she should firstly know well about the lumbar disease pathogenesis and treatment. The other physical treatment, such as needle, electric stimulation, ultrasounds… are all focus on reduce inflammation and pain, improve blood flow but cure the disease.

3. Epidural Steroid Injections (ESI) - Nerve Blocks

An ESI can be used to relieve the pain of stenosis and irritated nerve roots, as well as to decrease inflammation. Injections can also help reduce swelling from a bulging or herniated disc. The steroid injections are a combination of cortisone (a powerful anti-inflammatory steroid) and a local anesthetic that are given through the back into the epidural space. Epidural steroid injections are not always successful in relieving symptoms of inflammation. They are used only when conservative treatments have failed.

4. Collagenase Injection

In the year 1964, an American Scholar Lyman Smith injects Chymopapain into herniated lumbar disc to accelerate the lumbar disc degeneration so that to shrink the fibrosus and reduce the pressure on nerve root. This treatment is on the cost of increasing lumbar disc degeneration. After the injection, the lumbar disc could not restore its function as before and will side effected.

* Traction

Nowadays, traction is the best curative treatment to lumbar disc disease. Apply to the mechanics theory; it could widen the vertebra spaces through doing traction so that to abstain the curative effect step by step:

* Reduce the pressure on lumbar disc to improve the discs replacement in which way to reduce the stimulation and pressure on nerve root and tissues.

* Kill inflammation, improve the blood flow condition.

* Relax muscle spam, improve blood flow

Traditional traction is doing on special traction bed once a day discontinuously. After doing traction, the patient will get up, back home or do some exercises, when the disc load the upper body weight again, the replaced nucleus pulposus will be herniated again. Therefore, traditional traction is very easy to arouse reoccur of lumbar disc disease.

6. Surgery Treatment Surgery Treatment only used when the lumbar disc disease influence the patient's life, work and other activities who has to do the surgery. Surgery changes the body ex-organization and creates hurts. The patient could feel very painful after taking surgery cause that the surgery could damage people body organization and easily arouse other tissues changes, for example, some patients' healthy lumbar disc will easily to get herniated and degenerated after taking surgery. Further more, surgery could arouse adhesion between nerve roots and herniated lumbar disc that could bring legs numbness, loss of consciousness, osteoproliferation and vertebra slide ESP. So surgery treatment is a “has to do” treatment for lumbar disc disease patients. In some distant, lumbar disc disease is belong to the kind that self limited and self hailed disease; there are 80-90% patients could get a satisfied treatment result through traditional treatment with only 10-20% patients taking surgery. Except for the cauda equina injury deterioration patients, surgery treatment is not suggested to the patients suffering lumbar disc disease. As for these years, some hospitals are seeking benefit, so clinical surgery treatment to cure lumbar disc disease is the first suggested common treatment. This over-treatment is not only wasted of expensive treatment resources and added patients' pain and economical burden. Another element must arouse your attention is the surgery failure rate is remaining obstinately high.

Statistics shows there are 21.5-40% patients will feel leg and back pain in different degree after taking surgery. Some foreign scholars do some research on adolescents' surgery curative effectiveness. There are 20 in 70 cases that is 28% patients need another surgery after taking the first lumbar disc surgery during the 45 year long research period. Through doing lots document retrospective analysis of lumbar disc surgery's indications, methodology and complication, foreign professors found that the patients who took surgery even could cut the lumbar, enhance the nerve root spine and got a better curative effect which obtain 75-95%, for long term curative effect surgery is not advantageous compared with non-surgery treatment. Well, what is the cause to led this unsatisfied result? That should be talked in from the causes of lumbar disc disease.

Why taking surgery could not cure the lumbar disc disease?

For many years, medical world persists that the mechanical pressure on nerve root by herniated lumbar disc and osteophyte is the main cause of lumbar disc disease that is to say mechanical pressure for example long term over load of upper body weight. But this saying could not explain some thing. One, there are lots common people will get some lumbar disc degeneration and herniated during their lives. Some professors found 30% common people get lumbar disc herniated but without any symptom through CT. In clinical treatment we will always see that there are not necessary connection between patients' pathological changes structure or morphology changes of lumbar disc and back and legs pain. Sometimes there is a big herniated nucleus pulposus without oppress on nerve root therefore no symptom (ALPH) appeared; while there are also some patients feel very pain but without any symptom. Two, form long term clinical research, the degenerated lumbar disc will not easily recover when the disease keeps continually, and the pain caused by nerve root will always move and long time non-symptom intermittence. Three, recently research shows that when the lumbar disc herniated the patients wil l feel abnormal in sense aspects w ithout any clinical symptom or pain only caused by pressure on nerve root. Only when there comes the inflammatory congestion, edematous there comes the symptom. Four, in clinic process some patients will feel pain caused by pressure on nerve root, so without unload of the pressure the symptom could be relieved by traditional treatment. All the above indicates that patients make the lumbar disc disease causes extreme simplification.

Inflammation-Pathogeny Theory worth to be pay attention

Well, what is the exact cause of back and leg pain? After embryo completed its development, the blood vessels of lumbar disc begin to degenerate till there is no blood supply. Outer part of lumbar disc is annulus fibrosus which cut out with blood transportation. Lumbar disc has its own antigen. From 1965, Bobechko and other professors found that before herniated, the nucleus pulposus is isolated from the other organs and tissues and predict lumbar disc could auto-immunize. Geha thought lumbar disc will develop its autoimmunity system which appears as abnormal of cellular immunity and humeral immunity and arouse nerve root pain through inter actions between antigen and T 、 B lymphocyte after lumbar disc degeneration and damage. Some other scholars also have made lots contributions on lumbar disc pathogenesis and they thought that inflammation-causing media might be a very important element. The inflammation-causing substance such as immunoglobulin, cytokine, nucleus antigen and other substances will be oppressed out to the cavum epidurable as the lumbar disc degenerated and damaged that will make the partial and total body immunity reflect and make a kind of continually pain which called original pain. This point could interpret that only if the inflammation-causing substance oppressed out there will be the clinic symptom for the patient both in both lumbar disc disease and degeneration. There fore, stimulate on nerve root caused the chemical substances which could arouse lumbar disc disease maybe more important than the pure mechanical pressure that means it plays a very important role in lumbar disc pathogenesis. This is the inflammation-pathogeny theory which acknowledged by more and more scholars and brings many attentions to non-surgery treatment.

The complicated failed causes of surgery

The reasons of failed surgery are very complicated, except the main reason there are lots other reasons. Firstly, there is more about 10-20% patients who suffering lumbar disc disease get more than one lumbar disc degenerated. This will make the localization of lumbar discs before taking surgery is incorrect or some sick lumbar disc would be neglected to do surgery. Secondly, the complications always are neglected before surgery. There are more than 66% of lumbar disc patients are companying with side-hided socket stenosis, lumbar vertebrae cross section hyperplasia ， ligament hyperostosis, calcification, and spinal stenosis. The nucleus pulposus which stimulates nerve root was cut out through taking surgery but it is always unable to attend to everything at once and could not relieve the continually pressure stimulate on nerve root caused byside-hided socket ， spinal canal ， vertebral canal. That means the pressure on nerve root is not completely removed. Thirdly, if take the surgery such as Initial Disc Decompression, Epidural Steroid Injections (ESI), Initial Laser Disc Decompression and other non-traditional surgery on complicated lumbar disc disease when the doctor has not control the indications of lumbar disc Minimally Invasive Surgery. This kind of surgery could reduce the hurt compared with traditional surgery but could not move the pressure on nerve root caused by side-hided socket vextebral canal that is the reason of high surgery failed rate. Fourthly, after laminectomy, the partial damage should be repaired by growth of fabric tissues but not to rebuild anatomical structure. So, fabric scar tissue could not be avoided which could make the fibrosis of putamen around and nerve root. Too much scar tissues and putamen will make the tissues around nerve root and rumpbone process muscle join together, so tract and oppress the nerve root will arouse symptom after surgery. Recent research shows even the second time surgery could collapse the conglutination, cut out the scars, the conglutination and scars will again come out within 3-6 months after taking the second surgery as to most patients will feel back and legs pain again and even deteriorate pain at the end. Fifthly, because of the long term pressure caused by herniated substances, the nerve root will adhesive, degenerate and shrink so that the patient will feel hypesthesia and legs and feet pain after surgery. Last, the spine will get physiological gravity disequilibrium which could arouse another healthy lumbar disc herniated after cutting out the sick lumbar disc. Therefore, surgery is not the best treatment in cure lumbar disc disease.