Degenerative disc disease and pain

It’s not very difficult to find studies that state that, in the end, the status of the physical body does not account for much when it comes to the pain the patient is dealing with.

We know that pain is a subjective phenomenon and that its causes are multiple. This being said, a recent study (2015) stipulated that, still, there happens to be a link between the degeneration of the discs and the pain reported.

A meta-analysis was performed and studies looking into degeneration of discs at the level of the lumbar spine in adults of 50 years or less were analyzed. Subjects reporting pain and subjects not reporting pain were studied. Subjects reporting pain either presented with radiculopathy or not.

3097 subjects were studied. 38.6% of them had no pain while 61.4% of them reported symptoms. The ones that suffered reported more often structural abnormalities (disc protrusion, spondylolysis or disc hernia).

It is true that we do not fully understand the concept of pain as much as we would like. And it’s also true that causes of pain are multi factorial. But this being said, it seems to do no harm to favor integrity of the musculo-skeletal system. That is the goal of Posturology.