Disc, schmisc ∞
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Patients with back pain and sciatica recovered about equally well with or without disc herniations visible on MRI. Most people recovered (84%) well within a year … and there were actually 2% more good outcomes in the patients with disc herniations! This seems like a rather surprising result, but that is what the research has been showing for years. There is a chance the nearly identical stats are a fluke, but they’d have to be off by a lot to change the take-home message. Even a 20-point difference, ten times larger than this, would still show that a “slipped disc” confirmed by MRI isn’t nearly as worrisome as most people assume.