What Causes L5S1 Disc Herniation?
Great question! And I say that because most people never even ask or wonder about what caused the problem in the first place and our research at BeatingBackPain.com shows that for natural healing to take place, you MUST deal with the cause of your disc herniation!
Ofcourse I can only give a general answer to your question, and I will base that on our research, but looking at how you phrased your question, I can already say that you are spot on with your two mentioned causes. There are more, but I will get to that later.
Trauma indeed is a known cause of herniated discs. Certain car accidents are known to play a role in disc herniation. The sheer impact of a car crash on our bodies can either just cause a ruptured disc, or it can be the last straw that breaks the camel's back...
What I mean is that in some cases of trauma induced disc herniations it is not really the trauma that is responsible for the disc herniation, but the trauma is only the last drop that makes the bucket overflow as they say in my mother tongue.
And the real cause of the disc herniation then has to do with the weakened state of the intervertebral disc that already existed and made the disc vulnerable to herniation in the first place.
So it is important to figure out what weakens discs in the first place.
And this brings me to your second mentioned cause: postural dysfunction.
Postural Dysfunction and Herniated Discs
Postural Dysfunction is a definite cause of disc herniation. Trick is to figure out what exactly you are doing wrong with YOUR posture.
Let me first explain how posture can cause a disc herniation. Your intervertebral discs are designed to last a lifetime and all sorts of mechanisms are in place in our bodies to help our body to regenerate all of its cells.
Our vertebrae are meant to sit on top of each other in just the right stance and position, and if your posture is right, the pressures on your intervertebral discs will be evenly divided over the whole surface of your discs. And in that case your discs can stand quite a bit of pressure.
Trouble starts when your vertebrae are not properly aligned and not sitting right on top of each other.
Compare it to a car tyre, which is meant to last up to a 100.00 kilometers. BUT...
...you will only get that mileage out of your tyres if your tyres are rightly aligned. If your tyres are misaligned, you could need new tyres after already 5000 kilometers.
Same goes for your discs, if you have a postural dysfunction, par example you sit all day behind a computer screen in a slightly slumped manner, then there will be a lot of pressure on one side of your intervertebral discs only.
And sooner or later your discs will give in to the pressure and often first start to bulge, until finally they rupture or fully herniate.
You mention a herniated disc L5 S1. That is a common place for herniated discs. Research confirms that most disc herniations take place in the lumbar region of the back.
The lumbar region of the back - or the lower back - gets most of the pressures on our backs, so it is only logical that herniations happen there most often.
And L5S1 means the lowest part of the back, and that makes me think about your sitting posture first.
Why do I mention sitting?
Because if you sit wrong, you end up sitting on your tailbone, rather than on your sitting bones. If you would sit on your sitting bones, that would allow your spine to nicely rest - thanks to the si-joint - on your pelvis. And if you sit like that, your vertebrae are nicely stacked on top of each other. But if you sit on your tailbone, there will be an increasing buildup of pressure on the L5S1 disc and if you do that for long enough it will push your disc out of its natural and proper place.
Truck drivers are prone to herniated discs in that area. But also competitive bicyclists. Lots of Tour de France racers have suffered from herniated discs.
The million dollar question is ofcourse:
How To Heal Herniated Discs Naturally?
