What Does a Slipped Disc Feel Like? People Share Their Experiences With GoodRx
Key takeaways:
A herniated disc — also known as a slipped, ruptured, or bulging disc — is an injury of the spine (backbone).
It can happen when one of the rubbery discs between your vertebrae moves from its usual position.
A slipped disc is a leading cause of neck, arm, back, and leg pain. Those who have experienced it say it causes a throbbing, burning, tingling pain.
If you’ve ever experienced a sharp, radiating pain that extends from your lower back to your extremities, you may know what a herniated disc feels like.
A herniated disc — sometimes called a slipped, ruptured, or bulging disc — is an injury of the spine that happens when one of the rubbery pads between the vertebrae slips out of place. It can cause pain in the back, neck, and legs. It can also cause numbness or tingling.
Up to about 2% of adults experience a herniated disc each year, and it’s more common as people get older. Here’s what people who have experienced this spinal injury say it feels like.
Airplane turbulence tweaked his back
Gerard Fioravanti says he’s had minor back troubles since he was 30. In 2014, he took his partner to Paris for his partner’s birthday. There was turbulence on the flight back home to Huntington, New York, and Gerard felt something pop in his lower back.
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“It took 2 or 3 weeks for it to really herniate,” Gerard says. “It was excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand.”
The muscle pain was so bad in his right thigh that he went to the emergency room. He got a diagnosis of an L4-L5 herniated disc. It was putting pressure on the nerves, making it impossible to move his legs.
The pain was something Gerard had never felt before.
“It felt like burning fire,” he says.
Initially, he got epidurals to treat his symptoms. Then he had surgery — two laminectomies to remove bone fragments and then a spinal fusion.
Gerard, a 61-year-old pastry chef, says that, as he recovers, he becomes more aware of his body. His job involves a lot of bending, so he now pays attention to his form.
“You learn body mechanics once something like this happens to you,” he says. “I’m looking forward to better days ahead.”
She tried to ignore it and go salsa dancing
Gina Gotthilf is the co-founder of the tech company Latitud, a platform helping startups in Latin America. Gina, who is 36 and based in Miami, travels a lot. She was working in Brazil, having a typical day, when her back started hurting.
“I wasn’t actually doing anything in particular,” she says. “I was just going about my day very normally.”
Then, her lower back started hurting a little.
“I kind of ignored it for a little bit,” she says. “I actually went salsa dancing.”
By the next day, her leg hurt and then the pain had spread to her knee.
“Pretty soon, I was basically crying in pain,” she says. She had an MRI scan and got a diagnosis of a herniated disc.
“Nonstop pain isn’t something I’d felt before,” she says. “You’re lying down and you’re in pain, and then you’re, like, ‘I’ll try to move.’ And then moving hurts a lot more. But, then, you can’t find a position that hurts less. So it’s almost like there’s nothing you can do.”For a few days, Gina’s fiancé helped her get from her bedroom to the bathroom.
“There was just no refuge from the pain,” she says.
She’s been doing physical therapy to treat her symptoms and hopes to get back to her regular activities, like yoga and running, soon. And she’s dreaming of better days, when she can go horseback riding again.
The pain felt like an electric shock
The first time Steve Morrow had a herniated disc was in 1999. He was 27 years old and didn’t know why he was experiencing pain in his right calf. He tried to dismiss it, but the pain increased.
He went to the doctor, but the medication he was prescribed didn’t ease the pain. He tried physical therapy and cortisone injections but nothing helped, he says.
“At that point in my life, I had never dealt with any kind of an injury or pain like that,” he says, adding that, later that year, he had back surgery. “It felt like that was the only option.”
After the surgery, he says, he went about his life and started doing things like playing golf again. He used inversion therapy whenever an issue came up.
But, in 2015, something happened when Steve went to the gym. After doing dead lifts, he didn’t feel quite right the next day. There was stiffness in his pelvic area, so he reached out to a chiropractor and got an MRI. It turned out that he had herniated a disc, again. This caused spinal stenosis (when the spinal canal narrows), which left him hunched over in pain for several months.
“It literally felt like sticking your finger in an electrical outlet,” he says. “Another thing I can tell you, living in Arizona, I’ve been stung by a scorpion a few times. It’s a similar sensation.”
Now 50, Steve says that it is important not to diagnose yourself. He knows now that surgery doesn’t have to be the first option and that everyone has to find out what works best for them as an individual. What works for him is doing yoga and kayaking, which he writes about on his blog Paddle About.
A high school soccer injury
For 27-year-old Jessie Koerner of Chicago, thinking about a herniated disc brings back memories of high school soccer.
When she was a junior in high school, in New Jersey, she didn’t know what a herniated disc was. It wasn’t until an injury at a soccer match that she understood the concept. Jessie played goalie and was warming up before a game. She dove for the ball but, afterward, couldn’t get back up.
Jessie’s back was tight and she was in a lot of pain. She couldn’t stand up straight and could feel an agonizing sensation moving down her legs. She had an X-ray and MRI, which showed a herniated disc. So she went to physical therapy for 3 months to reduce the pain.
“It almost feels like you’re throbbing — your lower back down to your legs,” she says. “It’s insanely uncomfortable. It’s almost like a migraine for your lower body.”
When it first happened, Jessie had epidural steroid injections to deal with the pain, in addition to the physical therapy. Today, she’s learned when to push her body and when to ease up.
“It’s better to be smart and listen to your body than try to be a hero,” she says.
What does the doctor say?
Patricia Pinto-Garcia, MD, MPH
Medical Editor
Discs sit between the vertebrae, the bones that make up your backbone. They’re made of collagen and other gel-like tissue. They act as shock absorbers that keep the vertebrae from rubbing together when you move. They also help with flexibility and protect the nerves that come out of your spinal cord and run through your vertebrae and into the rest of your body.
Discs can slip, rupture, or just wear down over time. Without a disc in place, there’s nothing to distribute the impact of your movements. So even the smallest movement can trigger pain and discomfort.
Depending on which direction it slipped in, the disc can press on the nerves coming out of your spinal cord. This causes symptoms like burning, itching, tingling, and sharp, shooting pains. Slipped discs are more common in the lower spine — where the nerves that control your legs come from — which is why many people experience pain and other symptoms in their lower extremities.
There’s no blanket solution for treating a herniated disc. What works for some people may not work for others, and personal preferences also matter. Some people want to try more invasive options, like surgery, right away, while others want to try physical therapy and other pain-control methods first. The best option is the one that lets you get back to doing what you love.
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