What dietary taboos should be noted for lumbar disc herniation?

There are no absolute dietary taboos for lumbar disc herniation, but patients who are in the acute stage and have underlying diseases are usually advised to avoid foods high in sugar, oil, purine, and strong irritants to avoid aggravating inflammation, edema, and increasing the burden on the lumbar spine.

When I was volunteering for a community lumbar protrusion rehabilitation group last year, I met a programmer in his 30s. He had been lying down for two weeks in the acute stage and was just able to move a few steps. He was greedy and followed his friends to eat butter hot pot and drank two bottles of iced Coke. That night, his waist throbbed with pain and he screamed 1 20 When I went to the emergency room, the doctor said that the aseptic inflammation around his nerve roots had not gone away. Heavy oil, spicy food, and ice drinks aggravated the inflammatory reaction. The already swollen nerve roots had become "fat" and stuck directly to the herniated intervertebral disc. However, he was in so much pain that he couldn't stand up.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you can’t touch even one bite of these things. I also know many old patients who have been ill for five or six years. It’s okay to have a barbecue occasionally during the stable period. Many so-called “taboos” are actually situation-specific, and there is no one-size-fits-all truth. There were rumors before that people with lumbar protrusions should not touch cold foods, including watermelons and crabs. In fact, there is no clear clinical basis for this statement. As long as you have good gastrointestinal tolerance and do not suffer from diarrhea or abdominal pain after eating these foods, it is perfectly fine to eat normally. I am afraid that some people with sensitive gastrointestinal tracts will loose their bowels when they eat something cold. They will squat in the toilet for more than ten minutes without straining. When the abdominal pressure rises, it will squeeze the herniated intervertebral disc and make the legs numb. In this case, you need to properly control your mouth.

In fact, most of the effects of diet on lumbar protrusion are indirect. You can think of the lumbar intervertebral disc as a soft sponge pad sandwiched between two vertebrae. If you eat fried chicken with high-oil and high-sugar milk tea every day, your weight will increase by ten or twenty kilograms. It is equivalent to pressing an extra ten kilogram bag of rice on the sponge pad every day. The already thinned pad will definitely be more likely to deform and protrude. If you still have gout and your blood uric acid levels are high all year round, you should really avoid eating high-purine seafood, animal offal, and rich broth. If uric acid crystals are deposited around the nerve roots, the pain will be mixed with the pain of lumbar protrusion, and your recovery will be delayed by at least half a month.

If you are in the acute stage and are in pain so much that you rely on anti-inflammatory painkillers, it is best not to touch anything that is too spicy or too sour. These NSAIDs themselves can easily irritate the gastric mucosa. Eating irritating food can easily cause stomach problems. When the time comes, stomach pain will be combined with back pain, and even lying down will be uncomfortable, let alone doing rehabilitation exercises.

To put it bluntly, there is no need to be too anxious about eating. The impact of diet on lumbar prolapse is far less than bad habits such as sitting for a long time and bending down to carry heavy objects. As long as you control your weight and eat less foods that make you uncomfortable, it is enough. If you really want to recover with less suffering, regular rehabilitation exercises are much more effective than taboos.