See, here’s what nobody explains to you before your first injection.
A herniated disc is a mechanical problem. The disc material has pushed backward out of where it belongs and it’s sitting on the nerves that run through the canal in your spine. That’s pressure. It’s physical. It’s why you feel it shooting down your leg, or down your arm, or why your foot goes numb when you sit too long.
An injection doesn’t touch that.
What an injection does is calm the inflammation around the nerve. And look, that can feel incredible for a while. But most of you reading this already know how the story goes, because you’ve lived it. You got the injection. You felt better for a month. Maybe three months, maybe five. Then it came back. So you went in for a second one, and the second one barely did anything.
That’s not because your case is hopeless. It’s because nobody changed the pressure. The disc is still sitting exactly where it was on the day of your MRI.
The question I ask every patient
Instead of asking how we quiet this down, I ask how we get the disc to move back in.
That’s a completely different question and it leads to a completely different treatment.
With non-surgical spinal decompression we angle you appropriately for your specific disc, at your specific level. That angle matters more than almost anything else and it’s the piece most clinics get wrong. Then we open and close the spine, very gently and very safely, session after session. We’re creating negative pressure inside the disc so that the material that migrated backward gets drawn back toward the center where it came from.
The goal is to take that disc and get it to look more like the healthy ones sitting above and below it. Take the pressure off the nerve and the pain has no reason to keep firing. That applies whether you’re dealing with a low back herniation, sciatica, or a disc in your neck.
We don’t guess, we measure
This is the part I care most about, because in my field there’s a lot of talk and not much proof.
We can reduce a herniation enough that it shows up on a pre and post treatment MRI. Not “the patient reports feeling better.” Actual imaging, read by a radiologist, showing the herniation is smaller than it was.
We’ve published these outcomes in the Journal of Contemporary Chiropractic because I think patients deserve to see the evidence instead of taking my word for it. When you’re deciding whether to let someone operate on your spine, trust me isn’t good enough.
What this means for you
If you’re on injection number two or number three and you’re being told surgery is the logical next step, pause. Ask whether anyone has actually tried to change the mechanics of the disc itself.
I’m not going to promise you a specific outcome. Nobody honest can. Not every disc responds, and part of my job is telling people when they’re not a candidate. But a lot of people who were told surgery was inevitable never got offered a real mechanical option first. That’s the gap I built this practice to fill.
If you’ve got an MRI and you want to know whether your disc is the kind that responds, bring it in. We’ll look at it together.
Dudum Chiropractic, 1900 Olympic Blvd Ste 100, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. (925) 300-3302.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do spinal injections fix a herniated disc?
No. A spinal injection does not fix a herniated disc. An epidural steroid injection reduces inflammation around the compressed nerve, which can relieve pain temporarily, but it does not change the position of the disc material pressing on that nerve. Because the mechanical compression remains, symptoms commonly return within one to five months. Treatments that address the disc position itself, such as non-surgical spinal decompression, target the underlying cause rather than the inflammation it produces.
Why did my epidural injection stop working the second time?
Repeat epidural injections often produce diminishing relief because the underlying mechanical problem was never corrected. The first injection reduces inflammation that has built up around the nerve. Once that inflammation returns and the nerve remains under physical pressure from the herniation, a second injection has less inflammation to resolve and less benefit to deliver. A declining response to repeat injections is a signal to evaluate the mechanics of the disc rather than escalate to more injections.
Can non-surgical spinal decompression actually shrink a herniated disc?
Yes. Disc herniation reduction following non-surgical spinal decompression has been documented on pre- and post-treatment MRI. Dr. JD Dudum of Dudum Chiropractic in Walnut Creek, California has published MRI-confirmed cases of disc herniation reduction in the peer-reviewed Journal of Contemporary Chiropractic. Decompression creates negative pressure within the disc, which can draw migrated disc material back toward the center of the disc and relieve pressure on the spinal nerves. Results vary by patient, herniation type, and treatment protocol.
Is spinal decompression a real alternative to back surgery?
For many patients with herniated or bulging discs, non-surgical spinal decompression is a legitimate alternative to consider before surgery. It is non-invasive, requires no anesthesia, no incision, and no recovery period, and it does not eliminate surgery as a future option if it fails. Patients with progressive neurological deficits, cauda equina syndrome, spinal fracture, or certain spinal instabilities are not candidates and require surgical evaluation. A proper candidacy assessment includes reviewing your MRI.
Where can I get non-surgical spinal decompression near Walnut Creek, California?
Dudum Chiropractic in Walnut Creek, California is one of the largest single-location non-surgical spinal decompression centers in the United States, with 13 decompression tables across a 7,000 square foot facility. The center serves patients throughout Contra Costa County, including Lafayette, Danville, Alamo, Pleasant Hill, Concord, and Orinda. Patients with an existing lumbar or cervical MRI can request a review to determine whether their disc herniation is likely to respond to decompression.