Descriptive Patterns of Radiating Pain for Lumbar Herniated Intervertebral Disc

Park, Seong Kyu; Shim, Dae Moo; Lee, Won Gu

Abstract

STUDY DESIGN AND OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the descriptive patterns of radiating leg pain due to lumbar herniated intervertebral disc, and the correlation between the patterns and various factors such as age, gender, occupation, education, duration of symptom, straight leg raising test, and degree of disc herniation on magnetic resonance imaging.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred and three patients who had lower back pain and radiating leg pain were diagnosed with lumbar herniated intervertebral disc. We investigated the descriptions of their radiating leg pain, and standardized and classified 44 adjective words to 11 groups by the Korean McGill pain questionnaire. We analyzed the frequencies of each word and the correlation between the frequencies and the various factors.
RESULTS
The pattern of pain descriptions tended to exhibit certain characteristic traits. The word 'flashing' was the most common (72.8%), followed by the word 'jerking'(62.1%). Descriptions of most patients included either the word 'flashing' or 'jerking'(92.2%). However, there was no significant relation between the frequencies of each word and any factors (p>0.05, chisquare).
CONCLUSIONS
The pattern of patients' descriptions for radiating pain of lumbar herniated intervertebral disc is either the word 'flashing'or 'jerking'. This is a useful description to diagnosis and plan for the treatment of lumbar herniated intervertebral disc.