By Deborah Westergaard, MD | Regen Experts powered by Pain Experts The Problem: A Diagnosis That Often Leads Straight to Surgery He walked into my Dallas clinic with a familiar story. A high-performing individual. Disc degeneration on imaging. Pain beginning to interfere with movement, travel, and performance. And the message he had already started to hear: “This is degenerative disc disease… and eventually, you may need surgery.” This is where many patients feel their option

But here’s what most people aren’t told: Those same small nerves don’t just carry pain signals. They also provide input to critical stabilizing muscles of your spine—particularly the multifidus muscles. These deep muscles form a core part of your spine’s functional stability system. When they atrophy, the architecture of your spine weakens, leaving you vulnerable to progressive degeneration, instability, and worsening pain over time. This isn’t theoretical. We now have clear