What is a herniated disk?
Herniated disks are most common in the lumbar spine–the part of your backbone between the bottom of your ribs and your hips. Disks are the soft “cushions” between the bones of the spine. The disks in the spine let you move your backbone. When a disk between two bones in the spine presses on the nerves around the backbone, it’s called a herniated disk. The word “herniate” (say: her-nee-ate) means to bulge or to stick out. Sometimes this is called a ruptured or slipped disk.
