Talk:Disc herniation

Research Section:

In my opinion, this section should be completely removed. This research applies to disc degeneration, and the article is about "Spinal disc herniation"; these are 2 completely different topics. If this section is deemed relevant, it should be made more clear how it is relevant. It is also only 1 research area, and hardly representative of relevant research as a whole.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.231.118.194 (talk) 13:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not a medic - are they right? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:34, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Can anyone cite these Signs and symptoms?

As they were tagged years ago as uncited I am moving them here until someone can cite them. Perhaps you can help?

Symptoms of a herniated disc can vary depending on the location of the herniation and the types of soft tissue involved. They can range from little or no pain, if the disc is the only tissue injured, to severe and unrelenting neck pain or low back pain that radiates into regions served by nerve roots which have been irritated or impinged by the herniated material. Often, herniated discs are not diagnosed immediately, as patients present with undefined pains in the thighs, knees, or feet.

Symptoms may include sensory changes such as numbness, tingling, paresthesia, and motor changes such as muscular weakness, paralysis, and affection of reflexes. If the herniated disc is in the lumbar region, the patient may also experience sciatica due to irritation of one of the nerve roots of the sciatic nerve. Unlike a pulsating pain or pain that comes and goes, which can be caused by muscle spasm, pain from a herniated disc is usually continuous or at least continuous in a specific position of the body.

Typically, symptoms are experienced only on one side of the body, but if a herniation is very large and presses on the nerves on both sides within the spinal column or the cauda equina, both sides of the body may be affected, often with serious consequences. Compression of the cauda equina can cause permanent nerve damage or paralysis which can result in loss of bowel and bladder control and sexual dysfunction. This disorder is called cauda equina syndrome. Other complications include chronic pain. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1 have you tried checking out some textbook chapters? Wiley has decent access to textbooks and springer has good access as well. perlego also has some medical textbooks. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 06:53, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@IntentionallyDense Thanks, as you can see I am very inexperienced with editing medical articles (and didn't study biology beyond the age of 16 many decades ago). I just logged into the Wikipedia library and searched for Wiley 'Disc herniation symptoms' and am trying to understand the results now. But maybe I should also include some other search term or filter do you think in order to get modern overview type results that are somewhat understandable to non-medic patients such as myself? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:52, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Try the first paragraph under clinical presentation in this article . The clinical presentation here is good as well . This source talks about cauda eqquina syndrome. This source talks about symptoms in the diagnosis section . That should hopefully give you a good start. Let me know if you get stuck anywhere and thanks for your help IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 17:15, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@IntentionallyDense Thank you so much - I probably would have given up before finding those really useful sources. I have put back some of the above text with cites. But some I have not - for example I am guessing that the claim that 'Often, herniated discs are not diagnosed immediately, as patients present with undefined pains in the thighs, knees, or feet.' nowadays depends on how available an MRI machine is to that doctor/patient. Hoping to do a little more editing on this article in the next few days using the sources you pointed out. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:55, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

A question - the citations you've been adding don't work properly - they take you to the main wikipedia library page, rather than to the actual source; e.g. <ref>{{Cite web |title=The Wikipedia Library |url=https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/ |access-date=2026-08-07 |website=wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-65430-6_203-1#Sec11}}</ref> . Are these an acceptable source construction? I've never run across sourcing like this before. They should link to the actual source by my understanding, since you can't verify the citation directly. cheers, anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:07, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Anastrophe Ah yes you are right - I had been cutting and pasting the url and automatically generating the cite in visual editor. Have fixed by cutting and pasting doi there instead then the editor generates correctly I think Chidgk1 (talk) 07:28, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much! cheers, anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:33, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I doubt I will do any more on this article so if anyone else would like to further mine the sources mentioned above that would be great Chidgk1 (talk) 07:07, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Treatment section overlaps sciatica article

For example the first 3 paras of the treatment section here. Do you think I should move some text to that article and either link to it or excerpt it back here? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:50, 1 August 2026 (UTC)