herniation

When Jaden was finally diagnosed with acquired Chiari, or a brain herniation caused by a spinal fluid leak, in November 2014, doctors rushed him into brain surgery.

He missed the start of the season after undergoing microdiscectomy for a lumbar disc herniation.

"Currently there is no curative treatment for disc herniation, and the best thing out there is just like sticking a plain rubber plug into a hole in a tire. It will stay for a while but it won't make a great seal," said co-senior author Robert Mauck, PhD, a professor in Orthopaedic Surgery and director of the McKay Laboratory for Orthopaedic Surgery Research at Penn and research career scientist and co-director of the Translational Musculoskeletal Research Center at the CMCVAMC.

Herniation in the spine occurs when one of the soft discs that sits between the vertebrae develops a split or a hole, and the soft interior squeezes through.

Although a disk herniation definitely can be a possible cause of pain irradiating in the leg, it is only rarely a cause of local back pain.