Hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and it's
Anatomy time. And guess what we're going
to talk about the lumbar spine today. Let's get started.
So the folks at GPI Anatomicals were very nice,
and they sent me some of their models.
This is a normal spine. So i'm just going
to show you some pieces here so you can
see what I'm talking about.
And if you look at, it it looks nice and
healthy, the bone looks smooth all the
way around. Your disk and here is nice
and circular. The nucleus
pulposus is in there, and that's kind of
that squishy part of the spine, and when
it's not doing well it bulges out. Here
is your nervous system, your central,
your central nervous system, and then
these are the nerves that come out. So if
they were here, those would be the ones
going out to my legs. And then you've got
your spinous process in the back. And so
you can see here there's lots of nice
space so it's not pushing on the nerves
it's not pushing on the nerves going out
here. You can see maybe the little bumps here.
Those are the nerve roots, and so a lot
of times if you have the radiculopathy,
that's where the nerve root is inflammed
because something is pushing on it here,
and it's shooting out that pain to your
leg or if it's in cervical spine out to
your arms. So as you can see these these
all look good. This is how it's supposed
to look, but unfortunately even at an
early age, we start degenerating and
changing and things start happening
over time. So then the next one over
would be here. And so you can see a
little bit of changes up on top.
It shows you a herniated disc where is
just bulging a little bit, it's not
actually ruptured and pushing all the
way through, but it's going to start
putting a little pressure there. Now a
lot of times for the herniated disc,
you're not going to have any symptoms
because it's not quite pushing on the
spine, but what might happen is you might
bend over to lift something up
and it puts just enough pressure just to
give that twinge where you're like "oh my
goodness," but it's not a constant kind of
pain yet. You can also see here where it
might start pushing out and irritating
that nerve and nerve root a little bit,
so at some point when it's bulging if it's
big enough, it might start giving some
pain going out there. And so you can you
see that there's just a minor changes
here at the bone some degeneration and
stuff, and so that's when it's not
terrible a lot of us after the age of 25 -
30 start having these changes, but we
just don't have any symptoms until we
have either something that triggers it
or we twist the wrong way and it just
hits that spot. So then after that it
starts getting a little bit worse as we
age some more or maybe we do actually
have an injury. And then you can see here
where the disc is actually ruptured
through. And this is when it starts to
get to that point where you might have
your leg feeling like it's constantly
asleep because it's pushing on that
nerve here, or it's pushing out at the at
the sides here and then is you just feel
that burning feeling, that sharp pain,
pins and needles. A lot of times people
say it feels like their foot's going to
sleep, but the scary part when it's pushing
on the nerves is that nerve is not
getting that signal to the muscles like
it's supposed to.
So then a lot of times when your brain
says "lift your toes up because I'm
walking," it's delayed because it's not
going like it's supposed to,
and you go to step and you catch your
toes and you stumble down. So that's when it
becomes a scary issue and you really
need to go to your doctor, go to your physical
therapist and figure out what you can do
to start getting that better. And you can
even see here on the bone like something
right there would be a bone spur and
those can cause a lot of pain and
irritation especially if they're over
around where those nerve roots are
coming out. So you can and you can even
see right here where the disc itself is
getting smaller because you're just
degenerating and it's
pushing down and causing pressure. And
when the disc gets smaller the space out
here, then it becomes a spinal stenosis
issue where that it's the narrowing and
then that actually narrowing of the bone
is pushing out on those nerves, and so
that's why then people start bending
over more because it opens up those
spaces to take some pressure off of it.
And then you have here the the really
scary one that you don't really want to
see, and this is when it becomes where
it's a full stage osteoporosis. And you
can see here you can you can barely see
the disk space in between here because
everything's just kind of collapsed.
There's not even really the nucleus pulposus
in there, and so that's when everything
is generated, people are really really
bent over trying to get that pressure
off of it, or they just don't have the
stability of the spine anymore and it
just starts degenerating away. And
that's when it becomes really scary
because as it goes down it pushes on all
those nerves and then things stopped
working how they're supposed to.
So that just kind of shows you, you can
see right there that that disk has been
pushed all the way out into the nerve.
And so that's that's when it becomes
very tough, but the thing is it's not a
"okay i have to get up and sit down and
not get up anymore and do anything,"
because with exercises with stretches
with the right kind of therapy, you can
do those kind of things and actually
exercising helps this. So go talk to your
doctor go talk to your physical
therapist, find out what you need to do,
so you don't have to just sit down and
not have a quality of life anymore. So
there you got have it their all of them
here. If you have any questions leave
them in the comments section. If you like
check out some other videos go to
askdoctorjo.com And remember be safe
(take care of your spine), have fun, and I
hope you feel better soon.