As an Osteopath I see a lot of people with disc injuries. People are understandably concerned about doing damage to their discs, as they play an important role in the structural integrity of the spine, and live very close to nerves and the spinal cord, so they can cause a lot of pain and other problems.

There have been a number of studies where researchers take members of the general population and perform scans on them. they are trying to find out how many people actually have a particular injury. For example, by doing an MRI on 10,000 50 year olds, we can see how many of them have arthritis in their knee, or how many have a disc problem in their back.

Attached is data on a number of problems through different age groups. What most people find interesting is that problems generally considered to be for older people, such as degeneration, are quite prevalent in younger people. For example, 37% of people in their 20’s have evidence of disc degeneration on spinal imaging. This rises to 52% of people in their 30’s, and so on.

It’s interesting for a number of reasons but primarily, I think, because it tells us that having a disc injury doesn’t necessarily mean you will be suffering in great pain. After all, 68% of people in their 40s aren’t walking around in constant pain.