photos of varying disc conditions.
sadly these photos (attach) gave me an appreciation of how difficult/impossible it would be to reverse disc damage. MRI shows little by comparison.
(A) Young disc (male, 35 years old).
(B) Mature disc (male, 47 years old).
(C) Disrupted young disc (male, 31 years old). Note the endplate damage and inward collapse of the inner anulus.
(D) Severely disrupted young disc (male, 31 years old). Note the collapse of disc height.
(E) Disc induced to prolapse in the laboratory (male, 40 years old). Some nucleus pulposus has herniated through a radial fissure in the posterior anulus (right).
Discs (A-D) correspond to the 4-point scales typically used to grade disc degeneration from macroscopic features. Reprinted with permission from Churchill Livingstone; 2002.[4]
|