Slip Disc, Disc Herniation & IVDP — What Your MRI Report Actually Says
Ayurvedic treatment for a herniated lumbar disc — beginning with the one thing nobody translates for you: the word the radiologist chose, and what it predicts.
A herniated disc — reported in India as IVDP or PIVD, and called a slip disc almost everywhere else — is disc material pushing out beyond the edge of the vertebra and, sometimes, pressing on a nerve root. It is not one condition. A bulge, a protrusion, an extrusion and a sequestration are four different situations with four different outlooks, and your report names one of them. At Kerala's NABH-certified Agasthya Ayurvedic Medical Centre, Marma Chikitsa has treated over 10,000 spine and nerve cases across 30+ years, a great many of them arriving with a surgical recommendation already in hand. Online consultation available before you travel.
Send the MRI report itself, not a summary of it. The exact sentence describing the disc is what decides most of the advice we can give you.
The Most Frightening Word on Your Report Usually Carries the Best Odds
Short answer: herniated discs shrink on their own far more often than patients are told — and the rate rises with how severe the herniation looks. Pooled across published imaging studies, roughly 13% of disc bulges regress spontaneously, against about 70% of extrusions and over 90% of sequestrations. The word that terrifies people on the report is the one with the best natural history.
The reason is mechanical and immunological rather than mystical. The centre of a disc spends life sealed away from the blood supply, so the body has never learned to recognise it. When it stays contained inside an intact outer wall — a bulge — nothing reaches it and nothing happens. When it breaks through and especially when a fragment separates completely, it is suddenly exposed: new blood vessels grow in, immune cells arrive, and the material is broken down and cleared over months. More exposure, faster clearance. That is why a sequestrated fragment, which sounds like the worst possible news, is the one most likely to vanish on a repeat scan.
We read the Ayurvedic results across six query families before writing this page — slip disc treatment, slip disc medicine, slip disc packages, disc prolapse, herniated disc, and the bare IVDP and PIVD searches people run at midnight with a report in their hand. They are built to one template: slip disc treated as a single thing, attributed to vitiated Vata, then the same therapy list on every page with Kati Vasti at the head of it, and relief promised in three to six weeks. Not one of them graded the herniation — bulge, protrusion, extrusion and sequestration were used as if they meant the same thing. Not one gave the natural history. Not one said when surgery is the right answer. Not one carried a red flag.
So that is what this page is. The first half decodes your MRI and tells you what usually happens next. Only then does it talk about treatment — including one therapy at the top of everyone else's list that we do not perform, and why.
Your MRI Report, Translated
Find your own words here before you read anything about treatment. Radiologists use these terms precisely and they are not interchangeable — the difference between "bulge" and "extrusion" is the difference between two conditions with opposite natural histories, and being told you have "a slip disc" has told you neither. Note the labels: only four of these nine words grade the herniation. The other five describe something else the scan saw, and they are the ones that most often frighten people for no reason.
Disc bulge
grades the herniationAlso written as: bulging disc, diffuse bulge, circumferential bulge
What it means: The whole rim of the disc has spread outward beyond the edge of the vertebra, evenly, all the way round or across a broad arc. Nothing has come out. In the standard nomenclature a bulge is generalised — it involves more than a quarter of the disc's circumference — which is what separates it from the localised displacements below.
Worth knowing: This is the mildest word on the list and much the commonest. It is also the one that is least likely to shrink on its own — see the next section, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
Disc protrusion
grades the herniationAlso written as: focal protrusion, broad-based protrusion, paracentral protrusion
What it means: A localised push-out in which the base of the bump is still wider than the part sticking out. The outer wall of the disc is stretched but has not been breached completely, so the nucleus is still contained.
Worth knowing: Radiologists sub-divide these by width: focal involves under a quarter of the disc's circumference, broad-based a quarter to a half. Both are protrusions, and neither means the disc has burst.
Disc extrusion
grades the herniationAlso written as: extruded disc, herniated nucleus pulposus, HNP
What it means: Material has pushed through the outer wall, and the part outside is narrower at its neck than at its body — like toothpaste squeezed through a hole. This is a true herniation.
Worth knowing: The word frightens people, and it should not frighten them as much as it does. Extrusions have roughly a 70% chance of shrinking on their own, because the exposed material is treated by the body as something to be cleared away.
Sequestration
grades the herniationAlso written as: sequestrated disc, free fragment, migrated fragment
What it means: A piece of the disc has broken off entirely and is lying free in the spinal canal, no longer connected to the disc it came from. Often described as having 'migrated' up or down behind a vertebral body.
Worth knowing: The most alarming word on any lumbar MRI, and — genuinely — the one with the best odds of resolving without an operation. Over 90% of sequestrations regress in the pooled data, and complete disappearance is commonest in this group.
Annular fissure
a separate findingAlso written as: annular tear, HIZ, high-intensity zone
What it means: A split in the tough outer rings of the disc, sometimes reaching the outer edge. Not the same as a herniation — nothing has necessarily come out through it.
Worth knowing: Present in about 19% of pain-free 20-year-olds and 29% of pain-free 80-year-olds. The word 'tear' does a great deal of unearned damage on a report.
Disc desiccation
a separate findingAlso written as: dehydrated disc, loss of T2 signal, degenerative disc disease
What it means: The disc has lost water content and shows up darker on the scan. It is the earliest and commonest imaging sign of a disc ageing.
Worth knowing: Nearly universal with age — disc degeneration is present in 37% of pain-free 20-year-olds and 96% of pain-free 80-year-olds. This is our lumbar spondylosis territory, not a herniation.
Thecal sac indentation
a separate findingAlso written as: indentation of the thecal sac, effacement of the anterior thecal sac
What it means: The bag of fluid and nerve roots running down the canal is being dented by the disc. It describes contact, not necessarily compression of a nerve, and certainly not damage to one.
Worth knowing: Almost every disc bulge of any size produces this sentence. On its own it explains very little about why you hurt.
Neural foraminal narrowing
a separate findingAlso written as: foraminal stenosis, exit-hole narrowing
What it means: The side tunnel a nerve root leaves the spine through has been narrowed — by the disc, by bone spurs, or by loss of disc height.
Worth knowing: This is the finding that most often correlates with genuine one-sided leg pain, and it is where a herniation and canal narrowing start to overlap.
Nerve root compression / abutment / impingement
a separate findingAlso written as: root contact, root displacement
What it means: A graded description of how much the disc is touching the nerve — abutment means touching, compression means flattening it. The words are used loosely between radiologists.
Worth knowing: What matters clinically is whether the compressed root's territory is actually symptomatic: the specific pain path, the specific numb patch, the specific weak muscle. A report says the disc touches L5; only an examination says whether L5 is unhappy.
One sentence that trips almost everybody up: a report can say "disc bulge with annular fissure and thecal sac indentation causing neural foraminal narrowing" and describe a spine that is entirely ordinary for its owner's age. It can also say something much shorter and describe a genuine problem. The report describes anatomy; only an examination connects that anatomy to your symptoms. Assessment here is led by Dr. T.D. Bose, who trained under Marmacharya Shri Sudheer Vaidhyar and has been working with his therapy team since 1998.
IVDP, PIVD, HNP, "Slip Disc" — the Full Forms, Plainly
These four are the abbreviations Indian reports and doctors actually use, and searching for what they stand for is one of the commonest things people do the evening they get their scan. Here they are without a package attached.
IVDP
Inter-Vertebral Disc ProlapseThe disc between two vertebrae has pushed out beyond where it should be. It is the term Indian radiologists and orthopaedic surgeons use most, and it is a general heading rather than a grade — an MRI reading "IVDP at L4-L5" has not told you whether it is a protrusion, an extrusion or a sequestration, and you should ask.
PIVD
Prolapsed Inter-Vertebral DiscThe same thing with the words rearranged. PIVD and IVDP are used interchangeably in Indian practice and neither is more serious than the other. Occasionally the P is read as 'posterior', which is a description of direction rather than severity.
HNP
Herniated Nucleus PulposusThe soft centre of the disc (the nucleus pulposus) has herniated out through the tough outer rings. This is the term used more in Western reports, and it usually implies an extrusion rather than a bulge.
"Slip disc"
Nothing, medicallyNo disc slips. Each one is bonded to the vertebral bodies above and below it and cannot move as a unit. The phrase survives because it is easy to say, and it covers everything from a trivial bulge to a free fragment. If someone has told you that you have a slipped disc, the useful question is which of the words above is on your report. (A vertebra genuinely can slip forward on the one below it — that is spondylolisthesis, a different condition with a different plan.)
If your report says the level rather than the grade: the two commonest lumbar levels are L4-L5 and L5-S1, and the level decides which nerve is involved and therefore where you feel it. We have separate pages for each — L4-L5 and L5-S1 — because the symptom maps genuinely differ. If the herniation is in your neck rather than your lower back, read cervical IVDP instead; this page is about the lumbar spine.
Which Herniations Shrink on Their Own
Spontaneous regression of a herniated lumbar disc is one of the best-documented findings in spine medicine and one of the least-communicated. Systematic reviews that pooled repeat-imaging studies found the following rates. Read the direction of travel, not the decimal places — different reviews give slightly different figures and every one of them puts the four grades in this order.
Disc bulge
≈ 13%
shrink without surgery
The lowest rate on the scale. The material is still fully contained inside an intact outer wall, so there is nothing for the immune system to reach and clear.
Protrusion
≈ 40-55%
shrink without surgery
Roughly half, and this is the widest spread of the four — one pooled analysis puts it at 38%, another at 53%. Every review places protrusion between bulge and extrusion.
Extrusion
≈ 70%
shrink without surgery
Around seven in ten shrink measurably without surgery. Complete disappearance is reported in roughly 15% of extrusions.
Sequestration
≈ 90%+
shrink without surgery
The highest rate of the four. Estimates run from 88% to 96% across reviews, and complete resolution — the fragment gone altogether on a repeat scan — is reported in over 40%.
Where these numbers come from. The best-known source is a systematic review by Chiu and colleagues in Clinical Rehabilitation (2015), which pooled repeat-imaging studies and found an overall spontaneous regression rate around two-thirds, rising steeply from bulges to sequestrations. A larger 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine reached the same ordering — approximately 13% for bulges, 53% for protrusions, 70% for extrusions and 93% for sequestrations. Other pooled analyses put protrusion nearer 38% and sequestration nearer 88%. The spread is real; the direction is not in dispute.
Three things this does and does not mean. It does mean that a large extrusion is not automatically an operation, and that time is a genuine treatment arm rather than an absence of one. It does not mean that everyone should wait — a cauda equina syndrome or a progressive weakness is decided on a clock, and the section below sets those out. And it does not mean any therapy, ours included, has been shown to cause resorption. What we can say honestly is that the odds are with you, and that the job during that window is to control pain, keep you moving and stop the fear of movement that turns a self-limiting problem into a chronic one.
And the corollary nobody enjoys. If your report says bulge, spontaneous shrinkage is the least likely of the four — which is exactly why a bulge that is causing real symptoms deserves attention to the mechanics, the muscles and the load around it rather than a wait. That is the ground our disc bulge page covers in detail.
Your Scan Is Not Your Diagnosis
A systematic review of imaging in people with no back pain at all found that the findings we treat as diagnoses are extremely common in the pain-free. Here is how often, by age.
| Finding on MRI | Pain-free 20-year-olds | Pain-free 80-year-olds |
|---|---|---|
| Disc degeneration (desiccation) | 37% | 96% |
| Disc bulge | 30% | 84% |
| Disc protrusion | 29% | 43% |
| Annular fissure | 19% | 29% |
Source: Brinjikji and colleagues, American Journal of Neuroradiology, 2015 — a systematic review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations. The authors' own conclusion was that many of these findings are part of normal ageing and are not, in themselves, associated with pain.
Why we put this on a page that sells treatment. Because it changes what a good consultation looks like. If nearly a third of pain-free twenty-year-olds have a disc protrusion, then finding one on your scan does not by itself explain your pain, justify an operation, or justify a twenty-one-day admission. What justifies treatment is a symptom pattern that matches the finding — the right leg, the right path, the right numb patch, the right weak muscle. When they do not match, we say so, and sometimes the honest answer is that the disc is incidental and the problem is somewhere else: the piriformis muscle, the sacroiliac region, or the facet joints and general wear of the segment.
Go to a Hospital Today — Not to Us
Most herniated discs are not emergencies, and most of them improve. These are the exceptions, and none of them appeared on any Ayurvedic page in our survey of this condition. If one describes you, this page is not what you need today.
Bladder or bowel change, or saddle numbness
New difficulty passing urine or a bladder that fills without you feeling the urge, loss of bowel control, or numbness in the groin, genitals or inner thighs — particularly alongside weakness in both legs — is cauda equina syndrome. It is a surgical emergency, urinary retention is its commonest presenting sign, and decompression within 24 to 48 hours of onset is associated with materially better recovery of bladder and bowel function. Go to an emergency department now, not tomorrow.
Weakness that is getting worse week on week
A foot that drags more this week than last, a big toe that will not lift, or a leg that is measurably weaker each time you test it, is a progressive motor deficit — the one finding that reliably turns a conservative plan into a surgical one. Our foot drop page explains the timing, and the timing is not generous.
Severe pain in both legs at once
Bilateral radiating pain, especially of recent and rapid onset, raises the possibility of a large central herniation compressing the whole cauda equina rather than a single root. It needs urgent imaging and a surgeon's opinion rather than a treatment plan.
Fever, night pain, unexplained weight loss, or a history of cancer
Back pain with any of these does not belong to a disc until proved otherwise. Infection and secondary deposits in the spine present exactly like a mechanical back, and both are missed by assuming the MRI's disc finding is the answer. This needs blood tests and a physician first.
Pain that came from a significant injury, or in fragile bone
A fall, a road accident, or new severe back pain in someone with osteoporosis or on long-term steroids raises a fracture rather than a disc, and a fracture is not treated with oil and pressure. Get it imaged before anyone treats it.
A sudden, complete drop of the foot with a large fragment on the scan
A foot that went from normal to flat within days, with a big extrusion or sequestration on the MRI, is a prompt surgical opinion rather than a booking. Recovery of the nerve is decided in large part by how long it has been compressed, and that clock is already running.
Describe any of these at the enquiry and we will say the same thing. We would rather turn down an admission than take one we should not have.
When Surgery Is the Right Answer
We are an Ayurvedic hospital and a great many of our patients arrive having been advised an operation they did not want. That is not a reason to pretend surgery is never right, so here is the honest version.
It is right immediately in cauda equina syndrome, and it is right promptly in a significant or progressive motor deficit. Neither of those is a judgement call and neither is negotiable.
It is a legitimate choice in severe radicular pain that has not settled after a genuine trial of conservative care. The largest trial in this area — the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial, or SPORT — randomised surgical candidates with imaging-confirmed lumbar disc herniation to discectomy or usual non-operative care. Its intention-to-treat analysis, the primary one, found small differences favouring surgery that were not statistically significant, in large part because so many patients crossed between the groups: around a quarter of the non-operative arm went on to have surgery and around a fifth of the surgical arm did not. Its as-treated analysis, at four years, favoured surgery on every primary and secondary outcome except work status. Both readings are true and they say different things. Ours is this: surgery works, the trial does not show it is the only thing that works, most people improve either way, and the crossover in both directions is itself evidence that this is a decision with genuine room in it.
It is usually not urgent in the largest group of all: severe leg pain of recent onset with no weakness and no bladder change. Most acute lumbar radiculopathy improves substantially within six to twelve weeks whatever is done, the natural history of extrusions and sequestrations is strongly in your favour, and that is the window in which conservative treatment has something to offer. Choosing to use it is not the same as doing nothing.
And it is worth saying what we do not do. We do not perform spinal traction and we do not perform forceful manipulation of the lumbar spine, both of which are advertised widely for this condition. We also decline admissions where the picture on the report and the story on the phone say a surgeon should see you first. Our wider guide to that decision is Do I need back surgery?, and the disc-specific version is Can Ayurveda cure a disc bulge without surgery?
What Ayurvedic Treatment Can and Cannot Do Here
Six claims, each answered as plainly as we can manage. Three of them are answers a page trying only to sell you a course would leave out.
Relieve the leg pain and the back pain of a lumbar herniation
YesThis is the core of what we do and the part with the strongest record behind it — 10,000+ cases over 30+ years, 90-95% of them reporting significant improvement, a great many arriving with a surgical recommendation already in hand. One distinction worth holding on to, because this page is full of percentages: that figure describes how patients feel and function, not what a repeat scan shows. It is a different measurement from the regression rates above, and the two do not track each other closely. Pain, the muscle guarding around it and the nerve irritation driving it are the things treatment changes most reliably.
Restore movement, sitting tolerance and walking distance
YesMost of the disability of a herniated disc is not the disc — it is the guarded, frightened, stiffened spine around it, and the deconditioning that follows weeks of avoiding movement. That is directly treatable, and it is where a 14-21 day inpatient course earns its keep over an outpatient hour a week.
Give the disc the best conditions in which to resorb
PartlyThe evidence that resorption happens is strong; the evidence that any specific therapy causes it is not. What we can say honestly is that the natural history is on your side for an extrusion or a sequestration, that most people who avoid surgery do well, and that our job during that window is to control the pain, keep you moving and stop the fear-avoidance cycle that turns a six-week problem into a two-year one.
Shrink a disc bulge back into place
NoNo therapy on any list — ours included — pushes a disc back. Nothing in Ayurveda, physiotherapy, chiropractic or traction repositions disc material, and a page that says otherwise is describing a sale. What changes is the inflammation around the nerve, the mechanics of the segment and the pain; on a repeat scan the disc very often looks similar while the person feels entirely different.
Substitute for surgery in cauda equina syndrome
NoBladder or bowel change with saddle numbness is a same-day surgical emergency and we will tell you so on the phone. Decompression within 24 to 48 hours of onset gives materially better recovery of bladder and bowel function. There is no version of this we treat.
Substitute for surgery in a progressive motor deficit
NoA foot that is getting weaker week on week, or new weakness with a large fragment on the scan, is a surgical conversation with a clock attached — see our foot drop page for what that clock actually is. We decline these admissions and say why.
The Ayurvedic Reading — and the Therapy at the Top of Everyone Else's List
In classical terms a lumbar disc herniation is approached through Kati Shoola when the pain sits in the lower back, and through Gridhrasi when it travels down the leg along the sciatic path — the presentation our sciatica page covers. Both are Vata vyadhi: disorders of the principle governing movement, dryness and nerve conduction. The clinical implication is not decorative. A Vata-dominant, dried-out, degenerated segment needs oleation and nourishment; an acutely inflamed one with heat and spasm needs cooling and settling first. Giving the second the treatment meant for the first makes people worse, which is one reason we write the plan after the examination rather than before it.
Now the honest note, and it is the same one we make on every lumbar page. Almost every Ayurvedic centre treating this condition advertises Kati Vasti — warm oil pooled over the lower back inside a ring of dough — and most also list Kashaya Vasti and Anuvasana Vasti, the medicated enemas that Charaka names as the principal treatment for Vata. We do not offer any of them. This hospital performs no Vasti of any kind. We would rather name what we actually do than match a competitor's list, and we would rather you knew before you travelled than after.
What we use in its place is Upanaham: a warm medicated poultice bandaged over the lumbar region and frequently left in place overnight. It delivers six to twelve hours of sustained oleation and warmth to the paraspinal muscles rather than the forty-five minutes an oil-pooling procedure gives, which is the thing that procedure is reaching for in the first place. Around it sit Marma Chikitsa, Marma Abhyangam, Pizhichil, Njavarakizhi, Dhanyamla Dhara, Ela Kizhi and internal medicines chosen for your picture.
What a Course Here Actually Looks Like
Fourteen to twenty-one days as an inpatient, in five stages. The sequence matters as much as the list — the therapies that nourish a depleted segment are the wrong ones for an acutely inflamed nerve, and they come later.
Read the report, then ignore it for a moment
Dr. Bose reads the MRI and the words on it — the level, the grade, which side, whether a root is compressed and whether the fragment has migrated. Then he examines you, because the report and the examination disagree more often than either profession likes to admit. Straight-leg raise, power in the big toe and the foot, the ankle and knee reflexes, the sensory map, and how you actually move getting on and off the couch.
Settle the acute inflammation around the nerve
Early in a stay the work is anti-inflammatory and anti-spasm rather than nourishing. Dhanyamla Dhara for the heat and spasm, Lepanam where a localised application is called for, Ela Kizhi, and Marma Chikitsa at the lumbar and sacral marma points. Internal medicines are chosen for the Vata picture rather than off a fixed list.
Sustained oleation over the segment
Upanaham — a warm medicated poultice bandaged over the lower back, often left on overnight — is the centre of our lumbar work, and it is what we use instead of the dough-ring procedure you will have seen on every other page. Alongside it, Marma Abhyangam and Pizhichil.
Rebuild what the last few months took
Njavarakizhi is our anabolic therapy and it matters most in the second half of a stay — for the wasted paraspinal muscles, the leg that has not been loaded properly for months, and the segment that has to hold you up afterwards. Where wasting is more marked, Mamsakizhi is selected instead.
The half that decides how you are in a year
You leave with internal medicines, a written movement programme, sitting and lifting rules that fit your actual job, and a follow-up. Patients who do this part keep what they gained; patients who go straight back to eleven hours in a chair generally do not. We would rather say that plainly than sell you a second course later.
What the published Ayurvedic evidence actually shows
It is worth being precise about this, because the category is not. The published Ayurvedic evidence for disc prolapse consists largely of single-patient case reports — the weakest tier of clinical evidence, capable of showing that something happened and incapable of showing how often it happens.
The most interesting of them appeared in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine in 2022: an L4-L5 disc with a right paracentral extrusion and an inferiorly migrated fragment measuring 8 × 5 mm, managed conservatively with Ayurvedic treatment, re-scanned, and found to measure 4 × 3 mm with no significant compression of the exiting roots. The Oswestry Disability Index fell from 94% to 9%. A 2025 report in the same journal describes an acute prolapse treated over 26 days with lepa, upanaha, pinda sweda and vasti, with the ODI falling from 45 to zero and the Functional Rating Index from 40 to 2.
Two caveats we would rather state than have you discover. First, roughly 70% of extrusions regress without any treatment at all, so a single case of regression under treatment cannot be attributed to the treatment. Second, the 2025 protocol included vasti, which — as above — we do not perform; the other three modalities, lepa, upanaha and the pinda sweda family (Njavarakizhi, Ela Kizhi), are central to what we do.
What You Get at Agasthya
The First Six Weeks, and the Year After
Most of the outcome of a herniated disc is decided outside a treatment room. This is what we ask patients to do, and it is deliberately short enough to remember.
Do
- Keep moving, in small doses. Short flat walks several times a day beat one long one, and both beat lying down. Movement is treatment here, not a reward for getting better.
- Break up sitting every 30 minutes. Sitting loads a lumbar disc more than standing does, and unbroken desk hours are the commonest reason a settling herniation flares again.
- Hinge at the hips, not the low back. Bend the knees, keep the load close, turn with your feet rather than twisting the spine under load.
- Build the trunk and the glutes, gradually. Once the acute pain settles, deep abdominal and gluteal control is the single best-supported thing you can do to lower the chance of a recurrence.
- Sleep in a position that unloads it. On your side with a pillow between the knees, or on your back with the knees supported.
- Eat and drink for a Vata-pacifying picture. Warm, moist, cooked food; enough water; regular meals. Constipation and straining genuinely aggravate a lumbar segment.
Avoid
- Prolonged bed rest. More than a day or two makes the outcome worse, not better — it weakens the muscles you are about to need and stiffens the segment.
- Forward bends with straight legs. Touching your toes, seated forward folds, and lifting from a stooped position all load a herniated disc at exactly the wrong angle in the acute phase.
- Forceful manipulation and spinal traction. Widely advertised, poorly supported in disc herniation, and capable of making an irritated root considerably angrier. We perform neither.
- Heavy lifting, and lifting while twisting. The combination is the classic mechanism, and it is the one that turns a settling disc into a fresh episode.
- Smoking. It reduces the blood supply the disc depends on, and it is associated with worse disc degeneration and slower recovery.
- Waiting out a weakening leg. Pain can be given time. Progressive weakness cannot.
Movement and yoga — gently, and under guidance
Gentle extension-biased movement, pelvic tilts, cat-camel done within a comfortable range, and walking suit most people with a settling herniation. Deep forward folds, seated twists under load, headstands and shoulder stands do not, and a general class is not the place to work this out. Ask your teacher to modify, or ask us — we send everyone home with a written programme built around what their examination actually showed rather than a generic sheet.
Patients Who Came With This Report
We have collected the accounts of patients treated here for a slipped disc, a prolapse and an IVDP on one page, in their own words and unedited — including several who arrived with a surgical recommendation already in hand and chose a 17 to 21 day course instead. Rather than pick two of them out here, we would rather you read the set.
Slip Disc & Disc Herniation — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the full form of IVDP, and is it the same as PIVD?
Is a slip disc the same as a disc bulge?
Can a herniated disc heal without surgery?
Do you offer Kati Vasti for a slipped disc?
How long does treatment take, and what does it cost?
My MRI says extrusion. Is that worse than a bulge?
When is surgery actually the right answer?
Is there any published evidence for Ayurvedic treatment of disc prolapse?
Will the pain come back after treatment?
Should I be on bed rest?
From Our Patients
We publish patient reviews as they were written, and we caption each one for the grade it actually names. Both of these name a bulge — the lowest rung on the ladder above, and the one with the least spontaneous resorption behind it. We hold no consented account that names a protrusion, an extrusion or a sequestration, and we are not going to relabel a bulge as one to fill the space on this page. For a lumbar disc prolapse the fullest published account we hold is Dr. Aniamma Mathew's: a doctor, admitted 21 days, writing six years afterwards about a recovery she describes as slow and complete.
Disc bulge — 18 days inpatient, pain and numbness reduced
"I was admitted here for 18 days and underwent treatment for disc bulge. After treatment my pain and numbness got reduced. Treatment was good. Staffs are also good. I will recommend Agasthya Ayurvedic ..." Read more
Disc bulge — inpatient stay
Related Reading
Disc Bulge
If your report says bulge rather than protrusion or extrusion, this is the page with the treatment detail for it.
L4-L5 Disc
The commonest lumbar level — the L5 nerve root, the outer shin and the big toe.
L5-S1 Disc
The lowest level — the S1 root, the calf, the sole and the little toe. Read this if your report names S1.
Sciatica
The leg pain a herniation causes, and the Gridhrasi framing behind how we treat it.
Cervical IVDP
The same lesion in the neck, where the symptoms and the therapies both differ.
Spondylolisthesis
If it is a vertebra that has slipped rather than a disc — anterolisthesis, retrolisthesis, a pars defect.
Can Ayurveda Cure a Disc Without Surgery?
The decision-stage guide, with what 10,000+ cases actually show and who should not choose us.
What to Expect, Day by Day
What a 14 to 21 day inpatient course actually involves, from admission to going home.
What It Costs
Real figures for a course of treatment in Kerala, against what lumbar surgery costs privately.
Send the Report — We Will Tell You Which of the Four Words You Have
Send the MRI report itself rather than a summary, along with how long the pain has been there, whether it travels below the knee, and whether anything is weak or numb. Our doctors will read it and tell you plainly what grade of herniation you have, what usually happens to that grade, what we expect treatment to change and what we do not, and whether you should see a surgeon first. Free, and with no obligation.
Medically reviewed by Dr. T.D. Bose, Chief Physician, Agasthya Ayurvedic Hospital. Last updated: September 10, 2026. This page is general information and not a substitute for individual assessment. The regression figures quoted are group averages from published imaging studies and do not predict any one person's outcome; a new or worsening neurological deficit needs examining urgently rather than treating.