Can herniated discs be cured? It is a natural law that the human body ages with age, and the human intervertebral disc is no exception. Like other diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, etc., most herniated discs are degenerative diseases. As the saying goes, disease depends on treatment in three parts and on maintenance in seven parts. The same is true for herniated discs. The human body has the ability to repair most trauma. With recuperation and/or appropriate conservative treatment, most of the symptoms can be relieved as long as the inflammation caused by the herniation is subsided. Just like a person who has a small cut on the skin, just clean and bandage it, after a certain amount of time the skin gets scarred and healed. If the tendons, bone and other deep tissues are damaged, a surgeon is needed. The same is true for mild herniated discs with less severe symptoms, such as bed rest, local closure, traction and massage, etc. The symptoms of sciatica can be relieved by treating the symptoms without treating the root cause. At this time, the intervertebral disc is like a car tire that has been repaired, although it can be used, but it is already an old tire, and the mechanical indicators in various aspects can no longer be compared with the new tires that have just left the factory. In the future life and work to treat their waist, is a variety of intensity of work and physical exercise to choose properly. Various methods to cure the symptoms by treating the original are appropriate na? A variety of percutaneous intervention methods can be said to be a partial cure for the symptoms to cure the root cause. For patients for whom conservative treatment is ineffective and the indications are selected appropriately, the efficacy is about 70%. The advantage: it is less invasive in the treatment process, the disadvantage: most patients cannot see immediate results. Theoretically endoscopy is the cure for the symptoms and the root cause. Endoscopic removal of herniated discs can achieve immediate results in the vast majority of patients. However, this is also relative, for both simple and large discs, endoscopy can better remove the herniated disc and relieve the symptoms of sciatica (note that the relief is not the root cause). But things are multifaceted, and the efficacy of endoscopy is limited in some people with untreated herniated discs or late onset of symptoms and surrounding augmented bony or fibrous scarring edges. Clinically, I have seen athletes with severe disc herniation spinal stenosis at the age of 14 who had been practicing gymnastics since the age of 3. Such a patient would not do well with any minimally invasive endoscopic approach to treatment. Since conservative, interventional, and minimally invasive methods have limitations, is it possible to use a radical intervertebral fusion method? What can be done to achieve a once and for all effect? Most patients can achieve very good results, but some patients are not possible. In the case of a 14-year-old gymnast, for example, a simple open-heart surgery would definitely damage the anatomy of the spine and would be detrimental to his recovery from future sports activities. Performing an intervertebral fusion with an arch nail? He would have to give up his future athletic career. The spine is a motor organ and the fewer segments that are fused the better. For a small number of patients, after the fusion of one segment, in addition to the insertional trauma of the surgery itself, the degeneration of the adjacent segment, etc., is still a problem to be faced. This has led to the development of dynamic spinal fixation methods, also called non-fusion fixation methods. This method is still part of the ladder of treatment for spinal disorders, which means that if the pain is not relieved or cured by dynamic fixation or non-fusion, the spine still has to be treated with fusion. This is actually a subdivision of the entire treatment process to delay the time to perform spinal fusion as much as possible, which is the concept of step therapy. At this point, people may form the impression that there is no one best, most effective treatment for intervertebral discs. This question is like asking a salesman, “I want the best shoes. Are there such shoes? “Yes, not the most expensive shoes are the best, but the shoes that fit you are the best”. Herniated disc treatment is the same reason as buying shoes, what suits you is the best. Different shopping malls and stores can buy different expensive and suitable leather shoes, cloth shoes, plastic shoes and so on. There are many ways to treat a herniated disc, and as long as you can find the right treatment, you can achieve better results. No matter how appropriate the shoes are, it is impossible to wear them for a lifetime. The river of human life is fluid, and a herniated disc cured by any method cannot guarantee that the problem will not occur again in a lifetime. Patients often ask: Is there a cure? Is there a way to guarantee a lifetime without recurrence? My answer is: Yes, the prerequisite is that you make sure that you do not increase the strain on the disc, and the way to do that is simply that you make sure that you are 25 years old this year, 25 years old next year, and 25 years old the year after that. The phrase means: there is no such thing as a good thing. There is another difference between herniated disc treatment and buying shoes; seeing a doctor is not shopping at a mall. The medical act itself is a high-tech, high-risk one. Due to the doctor’s personal skills, hospital conditions, the severity of the patient’s disease, the degree of pain tolerance, heart tolerance, etc. all affect the effectiveness of treatment. ×××× yuan can buy ×××× yuan shoes, ×××× yuan may not necessarily buy you think the treatment effect of value for money. Patient and family awareness of the disease also plays a role in the outcome of treatment. In summary: Does this mean that spinal disease is incurable? No, there is no need to be so pessimistic. Through recuperation and treatment by the doctor, 80-90% of patients can be cured in the long term, and in the remaining 10-20% of patients, the pain can be relieved to an extent of 80-90% to maintain a normal daily life. Pain is the fifth vital sign of a human being after body temperature, pulse, blood pressure and heart rate. In other words: a living person must experience pain, otherwise that person will not have a life. Therefore we have to learn to live with the pain that does not affect our lives in the long run, so that doctors can reduce the pain that affects our lives to what we can bear, and we can all live more pleasantly and happily.