What Causes Degenerative Disc Disease?

Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) is a process that may involve one intervertebral disc or numerous. It's a fairly common condition, at least 30% of people aged 30-50 years old will have some degree of DDD, although a lot will not have any pain at all from it.

It involves loss of hydration to the disc which is normally 80% water and can be from natural causes, post traumatic, genetics, essentially numerous causes, some of which we know and some we don't.

Here are the ones we know:

1) Acute injury to the back - This may occur from a car accident or some other accident that causes the disc to sustain tears in the outer portion of the disc. The outer portion is called the annulus and is the part that has the nerve endings where pain occurs.

2) Wear and Tear - Repetitive injury to the disc, such as occurs with heavy lifting occupations or truck driving, can over time cause disc degeneration and back pain or neck pain depending on where the problem occurs.

3) Post-surgical - Patients who undergo a discectomy for a herniated disc will have less disc after the discectomy than prior. With less spongy material to support body loads, the remaining disc will have a higher propensity for degeneration.

4) Obesity - Higher body mass will place more stress on your discs and potentially enhance the degeneration.

5) Genetics - You may be predisposed to excessive disc wear and tear, so if someone in your family has or had degenerative disc disease, you may also develop back or neck pain related to DDD.

6) Smoking - This habit adversely affects discs and can cause faster degeneration. Smoking decreases the amount of water in your discs, and that water is what helps your discs absorb stresses from movement successfully. With less water content, your intervertebral discs can wear out sooner.

As you can see, there are some causes of DDD that can be controlled, but genetics is not one of them.