What is the difference between a bulging disk and a herniated disk?
A bulging disk hasn’t herniated yet. A “disk” is a spongy material between vertibrates of the spinal cord. Each disk has an outer cartilage that surrounds an inner nucleus containing a gel like substance. The disks are larger on the lower part of the spine. When a disk bulges, it means that pressure on the disk from the spine is pushing the gel out in a specific direction. Possible reasons for the pressure from the spine could be an incident of lifting something too heavy for your strength, or from some repeitive lifting procedure you do regularly. It could also be behavioral (i.e. poor posture, being overweight, and not exercising enough). You can read more about this here: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/fact/thr_report.
