Degenerative Disc Disease

Medical science has gone out of its way to promote the idea that degenerative disc disease is some abnormal and harmful condition which typically causes pain and disability in the spines of affected patients.  However, DDD is actually a universal and completely expected part of the aging process and is virtually never the actual source of any significant pain or related neurological symptoms.

The actual words “degenerative disc disease” are incredibly frightening and conjure up visions of spinal dysfunction and agonizing misery.  Most patients diagnosed with the condition are not given an objective and honest view of the real nature of the spinal changes they have experienced.  Instead, many doctors describe in vivid detail how their spines are failing, due to the disintegration of the intervertebral disc structures.  Most often, other diagnoses are made in conjunction to DDD, including foraminal stenosis, osteoarthritis, facet joint syndrome or even discogenic pain.  These pronouncements, just like DDD, represent typical changes in the spinal anatomy and are certainly not inherently painful unto themselves.

Most degenerative conditions generally begin past middle age and typically continue for life.  This is not true for degenerative disc disease, since most people demonstrate considerable degeneration in their lumbar and cervical spines by the age of 30 and many people show these change far younger.  I, for one, was diagnosed with advanced DDD in my lumbar spine at the age of 16.  The idea that DDD is an actual disease is laughable, since it is not harmful, contagious or unusual to experience during a normal human life.  In fact, show me an adult without DDD in their lumbar spine and I will show you an evolutionary anomaly!

If DDD is so innocent and coincidental to the occurrence of back pain, then why is it diagnosed as the source of pain in so many patients?  This is an excellent question and a major inspiration for my writing on the subject of chronic pain.  Degenerative disc disease, like many other back pain scapegoat conditions, is almost guaranteed to be found in the human spine.   It an old standby on which pain can be blamed, simply because doctors know it is there before they even complete any diagnostic testing.  Additionally, the fact that most laymen do not understand DDD makes the condition a perfectly acceptable structural abnormality to target as the villain in otherwise idiopathic back pain syndromes.

Blaming DDD for the kinds of serious and life altering pain conditions inherent to chronic lumbar dorsopathy is like blaming gray hair and skin wrinkles for causing cancer.  It is a ludicrous notion!  How a doctor can pronounce degenerative disc disease as the source of pain, when they themselves demonstrate the condition, just like every other human on this planet, is quite beyond me… That is until you take a long hard look at the profit driven history of the back pain industry and realize how keeping a patient in long term treatment is the real goal of many care providers.  There are few cures for common back pain, although there are hundreds of symptomatic therapy options.  In order for the money to keep flowing, DDD is used as a scapegoat and nothing more…

It is possible, in extremely rare circumstances, for a person to suffer pain from atypical disc degeneration.  This is medical fact and I can not and will not deny it.  However, the chances of this are so slim that less than one half of 1% of all positively diagnosed patients fit this criterion.  The rest are merely chasing a dream, thinking that they will ever achieve lasting relief from treating DDD.  Remember, there is nothing to treat!  Therapy options designed to manage degenerative disc disease are generally unsuccessful, due to the simple fact that the diagnosis is incorrect and the pain is actually the result of another physical, or more likely, psychosomatic process.

Degenerative disc disease is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to blaming the epidemic incidence of chronic back pain on a structural spinal causation.  The general public has been mislead into thinking that the spine is a fragile and easily damaged structure, when in fact, the spine is a miraculous result of millions of years of targeted evolution.  The human spine is actually the reason why we, as a species, have risen above the rest and proven ourselves to be so successful.  However, this is no surprise, given the Cartesian philosophy embraced by modern medical science.  Doctors look at themselves as engineers of the anatomy, rather than healers who must consider all possible contributors to pain and suffering, including physical, mental, emotional, societal and environmental factors.

In summary, degenerative disc disease is not something to fear.  In fact, fear is a major source of back pain and the nocebo influence of a positive DDD diagnosis will only intensify this occurrence.  If you have been diagnosed, it is crucial to learn the real facts of the condition in order to put yourself on the right road to back pain recovery or else face being led down the wrong path like a lamb to the slaughter…