Do Herniated Discs Heal on Their Own?

What if I told you that the worse you herniate your disc, the better your prognosis is? I know, it sounds insane, but there's real science to back this up. This was actually going to be the topic of my PhD before I switched to studying the effects of inflammation and dynamic loading, and I wrote an entire scholarship proposal on the topic of spontaneous herniation regression.

Herniated discs can heal on their own, and in many cases they do. Your body has a process called spontaneous resorption, where it gradually “reabsorbs” the herniated material over weeks to months [1]. A recent review of 22 studies found that the larger and more dramatic herniations (the ones that look worse on a scan) often show the highest rates of resorption [1]. That feels counterintuitive, but it’s true.

What a herniated disc actually is

Ah yes, back to my jelly-filled onion metaphor: think of your intervertebral discs like jelly-filled onions. The tough rings of collagen (called the annulus, or layers of the onion) wrapped around a soft gel centre (the nucleus, or jelly filled centre of the onion). A herniation happens when some of the jelly leaves the onion. The nucleus jelly can press on nearby tissues or a nerve root, which can cause a lot of pain and discomfort.

How disc resorption works

When herniated material pushes out of the disc, your immune system treats it like an intruder and starts breaking it down. This is because the nucleus, or jelly inside your discs have never been exposed to your immune system, so our bodies start setting of alarm bells to fight the foreign agent. Blood vessels move in, inflammatory cells clear the fragment, and the bulge shrinks over time [1]. Here's where it gets weird, the bigger, more extruded herniations tend to resorb best because they are the most exposed to that clean-up process [1]. Yes, it's really true, a much larger, more severe herniation may have a better prognosis than a smaller, minor herniation. This is because the immune response that comes to digest the seemingly foreign agent is drastically larger when you have a severe herniation compared to a minor one. The result is that a severe herniation may be reabsorbed and digested by the immune system, whereas a smaller herniation may not mount the same strength of immune response, and the injury may linger for a long period of time.

This all doesn't happen overnight. Most people see meaningful change over a few months, not days. One retrospective study of 128 people with lumbar disc herniation found that 37.5% showed clear shrinkage of the herniation on follow-up MRI after conservative care, without surgery [2]. Not everyone resorbs, and there’s no guaranteed timeline. But the direction of the evidence is encouraging, and it means surgery is rarely the first or only option.

Why the bending-sensitive pattern matters here

Most disc herniations get angrier with one specific thing; flexion. The act of rounding your back forwards pushes the jelly to the back of the onion. And when there’s a herniation present, the jelly has a clear path out to go and disturb our nerve roots and cause pain. This means that bulging or herniated discs can respond negatively to things like: slouched sitting, repeated bending to the floor, and even some stretches that put the spine into flexion or pull on the nerve roots.

If your back flares when you bend forward, tie your shoes, or sit slouched, you're likely in what I call the bending-sensitive pattern. Mornings can be rougher because your discs soak up water overnight, leaving the spine stiffer and more sensitive to flexion first thing. Don’t freak out, this is normal. Knowing your pattern matters, because it tells you which movements to ease off while your pain settles.

What to do

The truth is simple. Stop poking the bear, and keep moving as much as possible.

1. Cut back on sustained loaded flexion for the first few weeks. No heavy lifting with movements that tax your low back, and break up sitting every 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Walk. Start with 10 minutes, twice a day. Add time/distance when you can tolerate more. Take smalls breaks on a walk if you have to, but try your best to keep moving.
3. Hinge at your hips, rather than rounding your back. A previous post of mine describes the steps here.
4. Begin strengthening. A meta-analysis of 45 studies (3,036 people) found that exercise beat advice for both pain and disability after disc herniation [3]. My programs are built to do exactly this. My structured programs guide you through this whole process and take all the guesswork out of deciding what to do and how to do it.

Want to know which back pain pattern matches you? Take my free 2-minute quiz and find out.

As always, have a great weekend.

Best,

Mitch

References

1. Shen et al., 2026 — 10.2147/JIR.S559719. Predictive Factors for Resorption in Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Systematic Review. Journal of Inflammation Research, 19, 559719.
2. Abdalla et al., 2025 — 10.5455/aim.2025.33.202-208. Effectiveness of Interventional Pain Management on Disc Herniation Resorption: Radiological Evidence. Acta Informatica Medica, 33(3), 202-208.
3. Manni et al., 2023 — 10.1186/s40945-023-00175-4. Rehabilitation after lumbar spine surgery in adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Archives of Physiotherapy, 13(1), 21.

Disclaimer: this content is educational only and does not constitute medical advice. See a practitioner if you suspect serious spinal trauma from a fall or accident, or if you experience any of the following red flag symptoms: loss of bowel or bladder control, numbness in the groin or saddle area, rapidly worsening leg weakness, back pain with fever or feeling generally unwell, or unexplained weight loss with back pain.