Hey guys, Dr. Courtney here from Durrum Chiropractic and family wellness. And today I want to talk to you about the disc. Most of you are familiar with this, you understand that their are disc in the spine. But I want to show you better and hopefully help you get a better understanding of how important that discs are.
Using X-rays to Determine Disc Health
So if we’re looking at the X ray pictures right here, when we’re looking at X rays, there are three main things that we’re looking for. With our patients. Number one, we’re looking to make sure that they have the proper curvature from the side. And then also, we want to look for this disk space between those vertebrae. So your disc actually acts as a spacer. And what it’s doing is it’s holding those vertebrae apart, which makes room for the nerves to come out right back through here. And that’s called the foramen where those nerves come out. So we’re looking at it on the model right here looking at it in the cervical spine, the disk as the white gel here between the bones that separates holds the bones apart, and makes room for these nerves to branch off and go out to take care of and run your organs and systems are. So super important right there. Those disk, if not properly taken care of, can definitely deteriorate over time. As they deteriorate, what we will see happen is those vertebrae collapse down. All right, so that disk space is actually gone, that chokes off the nerves in the foramen here, but you also experienced tremendous amounts of pain and issues there. One of the things I want to really focus on in in emphasize the importance of is motion and mobility in the spine.
The Importance of Mobility in Your Spine
So when we’re talking motion and mobility, we want a full range of mobility in that spine, that definitely indicates a healthier spine, healthier nerve system, but also the motion and the activity of your spine initiates a process known as imbibition. And imbibition is that act of the motion working like a pump, to pump, the blood, the oxygen and the nutrients back into the desk. This is incorporated into many of the home exercises that we give our patients to do when they’re at home. Today, I want to do a demonstration and show you what this looks like so that you had a little bit clearer understanding of it. All right, so today we’re talking about desk. And what I’ve got here are two just household sponges as representative of the disc in the spine. And remember that disc is important. As you can see, right here in this model, the disc is what separates the bones and allows for the nerve to exit out through that foramen right there. Now, if there’s chronic subluxation, where the spine gets locked off, right there that can cause that disc herniation, which you guys all know it’s extremely painful, and back can cause radiating pain, things of that nature. Okay, so I’m using the sponges here just to illustrate to you what that disk looks like. And I want you what I’m really wanting you to take home is the importance of keeping your body, your spine and nervous system hydrated and moving.
Keeping Your Discs Healthy
So what I have here is an older spine that was down below this thing, the sponge has gotten dried out, it’s become rigid. Okay, so many of us if we’ve had, especially if we have occupations that require lots of sitting, okay, or even in the younger generations from spending so many hours a day on cell phones and digital devices looking down, these discs can actually dehydrate. All right, the danger with a disc being dehydrated is when that disc is dehydrated, you can see just the action of me now asking it to move. It’s getting little micro tears in that. Now if I were to make a hard, sudden move, I can actually tear that disc. Okay, so that could lead to a serious disc injury if that disc is dehydrated. All right. Now, this is a newer spine that is not gotten dehydrated, like the purple one is and you can see with this disc, I’m able to twist it to bend it to do all kinds of things. Now if I were in a say for example, a car accident, fall down the stairs get thrown off a horse or something could I injured this desk? Definitely I could. But guys, it’s gonna take a lot more forced to tear that desk. All right. That’s just representative of probably an average disk. Now, if you’re really good at keeping the spine, mobile and moving and active, okay, and keeping that motion there, then that disk stays very hydrated. And when that disk is hydrated, now, not only can we twist and bend, but it actually has stretch and give to it. This is why it’s so important to keep these discs hydrated. As well as keeping that spine mobile, the motion intersegmental only in the spine between the different levels of the vertebrae.
Healthy Discs Allow for Proper Movement in Your Spine
Alright, so see here, we’re still talking about the disc. And what I want you to see is this normal motion of the spine, being able to flex the head turn and move. The way you’re supposed to that the everyday action of moving this fine, works like a pump, and it pumps the blood, the oxygen and the nutrients into those discs to keep them hydrated. The problem is that if you have an injury in the spine and say in the cervical spine, and those vertebrae get twisted out of alignment, they can get locked up and you lose that imbibition pump system. So then that’s where we’re going to see the body begin to develop bone spurs. Okay? Now when we say bone spurs on an x ray, we know this is a chronic issue for bone spur to develop takes approximately 20 to 40 years. All right, so we’re not seeing bone spurs, and somebody that just had an injury last week, when we see a bone spur, we know this is indeed a chronic condition. So I hope that that illustration today helps you understand better the importance and the value of the disc. Its purpose in the spine and your mobility, your motion serving as a spacer for those nerves, and also the importance of you keeping your body hydrated.
Proper Hydration Helps Keep Your Discs Healthy
So the goal as far as hydration and water, if you’re a 200 pound person, you need to be drinking 100 ounces of water per day. So whatever your body weight is, you divide that in half. And that’s how many ounces of water you should be drinking per day. If I had somebody who’s come in, and they’ve been doing great with their care, and they’ve responded really well. And now seemingly for no reason. They suddenly have a lot of stiffness and soreness in their cervical or the lumbar spine. Oftentimes, I’ll ask them like, hey, Mary, have you been drinking plenty of water, and they’re like, oh my gosh, I forgot to drink water. So their body has become dehydrated. When your body is dehydrated, it doesn’t just affect the skin and the outer portions of the body. It also impacts those disc, it does no good to move the spine. If you don’t have the fluids to pump into those deaths. It is our job to keep the body well hydrated. So again that that factor is whatever your weight is divided in half. And that is the number of ounces of water you should be drinking per day. That number does go up when it’s extremely hot, humid, you’re sweating a lot exercise and work enough than you need to air even above that.
So I hope this video helped you today and helps give you a better clearer understanding of how important motion of the spine hydration of the body and how important that disc is. If this is something that you’re curious about or you’re wondering, maybe you already know you’ve experienced these issues, then we would be glad to get you in and check it out. There’s a link below this video down below. Just click on that link. It’ll take you into our portal and we will see you soon!