If you're a pet parent, you've likely heard the term "slipped disc" used by veterinarians or fellow dog owners. It's a phrase that often brings confusion and concern. As a professional with over 20 years in the field of animal wellness, I want to shed light on this topic and help you understand what's really happening with your furry friend's spinal health.
As the body ages all aspects show signs of wear and tear or degeneration. Discs are no different. Over time, discs dehydrate and that outer layer of tough cartilage stiffens, it may even show signs of calcification. These changes can cause the outer layer of the disc to bulge out fairly evenly all the way around its circumference — this generally is what a decreased disc space on x-ray looks like. It is usually at this time, your veterinarian will tell you your animal has a slipped disc. And this is where I tell you there is no such thing as a slipped disc. Discs, bulge or herniate, they never slip. In my world, I love for your veterinarian to state the radiographic finding as “What your dog has is a decreased disc space, which may or may not be causing your pet’s back pain or neurological signs and symptoms’ ”.
Now that decreased disc space seen on x-ray may indicate a bulging disc or a herniated disc. This cannot be determined without an MRI. As MRI scans provide better soft tissue contrast and help providers distinguish between fat, water, muscle, and other soft tissues. None of which can be determined with an x-ray.
A bulging disk doesn't always affect the entire perimeter of a disk, but at least a quarter if not half of the disc's circumference is usually affected. Only the outer layer of tough cartilage is involved.
A herniated disk, on the other hand, results when a crack in the tough outer layer of cartilage allows some of the softer inner cartilage to protrude out of the disc. This leakage of the soft, gel-like inner cartilage is very noxious and inflammatory. This is why when compared with a bulging disk, a herniated disk is more likely to cause pain because it generally protrudes farther and is more likely to irritate nerve roots. The irritation can be from compression of the nerve or, much more commonly, the herniation causes a painful inflammation of the nerve root. Again, this can only be determined with an MRI.
In people, it has been shown that even though an MRI indicates that the person has a herniated disc, that disc might not be the cause of their back pain. Many people have MRI evidence of herniated discs and have no back pain at all. I have no idea how this translates or correlates to dogs. But I do wonder.
I hope this helps a little bit with what exactly a "slipped disc" is or is not. And maybe why your neighbors dog had one and they couldn’t walk and your aunt’s dog was diagnosed the same way and did one round of medication and was all better. It is a very broad term with treatment outcomes that also have a huge range of success. And for a truly accurate diagnosis your dog does require an MRI. Which in turn generally means they are immediately sent for neurosurgery to correct the bulge or herniation.
Can chiropractic adjustments resolve a disc issue? That is what I really like to refer to them as, without an MRI diagnosis. Unfortunately, the answer is maybe. It depends on so many factors including duration and extent of symptoms, type of medications, age, size of the dog and patience of the pet parents. Healing nerves and the components of the nervous system takes a long time, although it is possible. I personally have had wonderful success and utter failure over my 20 years. I’m sorry to say it just depends mostly on how well your animal was before the issue and how well they can heal their body. I would like to add that for the first many years of my career when MRI’s were not common, I’d adjust animals with unknown or undiagnosed disc bulges and herniations on a regular basis. The vast majority of the time they got better.
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