If you've already been to a doctor for a bulging disc, then you probably know that the first thing most doctors will recommend are different medications. But is this the best option for your condition? How effective are these medications anyway, and are there any side effects that you need to worry about?

These are the questions this article will answer for you. First of all, let's discuss the types of medications that are normally recommended.

In most cases, a physician will prescribe an anti-inflammatory medication, a muscle relaxer, a pain-reliever, or some combination of the three.

In order to understand what these different medications do, you first have to have a basic understanding of what is happening when you have a bulging disc, and how the pain is being caused.

The discs of the spine are cushions that separate each set of bones within the spine. They are actually a special type of ligament, and besides their job of cushioning the bones, they also help to hold the bones together and help to maintain a proper alignment of the spine.

Each disc is made up of a strong outer covering called the annulus, and a soft jelly center called the nucleus. The annulus itself is made up of many layers of cartilage, which makes it strong.

When a person develops a bulging disc, what is actually happening is that one or more of the layers of cartilage that make up the annulus become damaged and torn. This creates a weakness in the wall of the disc, and the jelly will start to shift from the center into the area of weakness.

This ends up creating a "bulge" in the wall of the disc, which is where the condition gets its most common name - a bulging disc.

What's interesting about this condition, though, is that the nerves of the spine are located right behind each disc. And in fact, because of how close the nerves are to the disc, it's very common for the bulge in the disc wall to apply pressure to these nerves.

This leads to a chain reaction called "inflammation." What this means is that the body senses that something is wrong because there's pressure on the nerves. So, blood will be rushed to the injured area, because blood contains fresh oxygen and nutrients for healing.

Although this sounds good, in this case it just leads to more pain. There isn't much room for these nerves to begin with, so if you send a whole lot of blood to the area, it will swell up, become very hot, and add more pressure to the nerves. This just leads to even more pain.

So, to make a long story short, this is the reason that these medications are recommended. An anti-inflammatory will slow the rush of blood to the area and reduce the swelling that is adding more pressure to the nerve.

A muscle relaxer is sometimes used because the nerve pressure will lead to muscle spasms in the area of the spine that's affected. This just causes the muscles to relax.

The pain-reliever will numb the nerves and reduce your pain level.

Although all of this sounds great on the surface, the fact of the matter is that medications are really only effective about 30% of the time. They may lead to temporary pain relief, but they usually don't help for the long-term.

In fact, some of these medications can lead to other complications if taken for too long a period of time. Problems such as liver and kidney damage are very common with these medications.

The reason these aren't effective in most cases is because they are all designed to focus on the affected nerve - they do absolutely nothing for the cause of the problem which is the bulging disc itself. You can numb the nerve, reduce the inflammation, and help the muscles relax all you want, but if you don't address the cause of the problem, the pain will return.

The video above is 1 in a series of 20 that I've created to answer the most frequently asked questions that people have about bulging disc treatments. If you'd like to see all 20 videos in this series, you can visit http://www.bulgingdiscfaq.com