What is a spinal cord injury?

Also known as: acute trauma to spinal cord, pinched nerve, disc pain, radicular pain, herniated disc, bulging disc

The spinal cord is a group of nerves that run down the back of a person (protected by the bony spinal column- back bones) that carries messages from the brain to the rest of the body. Acute spinal cord injury in children is fairly uncommon (about 5% of all such injuries), frequently occurs in adolescents/ young adults and are often male.

Herniated discs in children (usually adolescents) are often (approximately half) found incidentally when looking to diagnose some other problem and is the bulging of the vertebral disc that is found between two vertebrae.  

Back pain can come in a variety of forms, ranging from mild to severe, and from a fairly large number of causes.

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Reviewed by: Jack Wolfsdorf, MD, FAAP

This page was last updated on: 1/29/2019 3:21:13 PM