Physiotherapy
Slipped Disc Physiotherapy in Singapore
Written by Shiv Mohan Banka and Ching Yee, Principal Physiotherapists at Phoenix Rehab.Clinically reviewed by Louise Yow, Principal Physiotherapist & Director, AHPC A1300363H.Last reviewed 27 September 2026.
Most herniated discs shrink on their own. The large ones more often than the small ones.
The body reabsorbs the material that has pushed out, and the bigger the fragment, the more reliably that tends to happen. So the question is rarely whether the disc will settle. It is whether you can keep working, sleeping and moving while it does, and whether you end up back here in two years.
$230 per 45 minute appointment. No referral needed to start.
Read this first
The symptoms that mean do not wait
Almost all disc problems are safe to treat conservatively. A small number are not, and this is the one section on the page worth reading before anything else.
- Emergency department now, today, do not wait for an appointment, if you have numbness around the groin, genitals or back passage, difficulty starting or controlling urination, loss of bowel control, or weakness in both legs. This is a small risk but a time-critical one.
- Emergency department now for a leg that has become suddenly and markedly weak, such as a foot you cannot lift clear of the ground.
- A doctor the same day for back pain with fever, or after significant trauma, or if you have a history of cancer.
- A doctor soon for weakness or numbness in a leg that is getting worse week on week, or unexplained weight loss alongside the pain.
If any of that is you, act on it rather than booking us. We would rather send you to the right place.
Where are you right now?
The first few weeks, and it is severe
Often the worst it will be. The aim now is getting you positions you can tolerate, movement you can do, and enough sleep to cope, without doing anything that sets it back.
The leg pain is worse than the back
That points at the nerve rather than the joint, and it changes what helps. Some directions of movement ease leg pain and others aggravate it, and which is which is specific to you.
Months in, or it keeps returning
The acute episode has passed and something is not holding. That is usually a loading and capacity problem rather than the disc still being the issue.
What the words mean
Bulge, protrusion, extrusion, sequestration
These describe how far the inner material has moved out of the disc, and they get used loosely. Worth knowing what your report says, and worth knowing that the label predicts your symptoms far less well than most people assume.
Bulge and protrusion
The outer layer weakens and the disc pushes outwards without the inner material breaking through. Common, and frequently found on scans of people with no pain at all.
Extrusion
The inner material breaks through the outer ring. Sounds worse, and can hurt considerably more if it sits against a nerve. It is also the type most likely to be reabsorbed by the body over the following months.
Sequestration
A fragment separates entirely. Again, sounds alarming, and again this is the group where spontaneous resorption is most often seen.
What actually matters
Not the word on the report. What matters is whether a nerve is involved, whether there is weakness rather than only pain, which direction of movement eases your symptoms, and what you can currently tolerate. All four come out of an examination, not an image.
Send us your scan report
We will tell you what it means for your rehabilitation, when therapy should start, and roughly how long it takes. No appointment needed to ask, and no charge for it.
We explain what the report means for your recovery and the likely timeframe. We do not diagnose from documents, which needs an assessment.
How the work is structured
Four stages, and you move up on criteria
You progress when you meet the marker for the next stage, not when a number of weeks has passed.
- Calm & Protect. Finding the positions and movements that settle it, and the ones that provoke it. Getting you sleeping. This stage is active, not bed rest, which makes disc pain worse rather than better.
- Move & Mobilize. Range through the spine and the hips, and getting you bending and lifting again in a way the back tolerates.
- Rebuild & Strengthen. Trunk, hips and legs, loaded progressively. This is the stage that decides whether the next episode happens.
- Return & Perform. A full day sitting or on your feet, the lift you actually have to do at work, the gym, the long drive.
None of the four is passive.
After spinal surgery
Rehabilitation after discectomy or decompression
If surgery was the right call and you have had it, rehabilitation runs to your surgeon’s precautions, which vary and take precedence over anything written here. Bring the operation note to the first appointment.
The work is a graded return: protecting the repair early, then movement, then loading the trunk and legs properly, because the muscles around an operated spine switch off and do not come back without being asked to.
If it has stopped moving forward
Six months on and still guarding your back
The disc has almost certainly settled by now. What is left is usually a back that has been protected for so long it has lost the capacity to do ordinary things, plus a reasonable fear of doing them.
The Stalled Recovery Review is three appointments over three weeks with the same therapist. $690.
What it costs
$230 per 45 minute appointment
One therapist, the same one every visit, for the whole 45 minutes.
Nett, no GST. Same price for your first appointment and your last. Most of that 45 minutes is treatment: manual therapy, joint mobilization, nerve mobilization, soft tissue work and graded loading, with assessment continuing throughout. You do not pay for a consultation and come back another day to be treated.
A disc program is 12 appointments, $2,760 in all, paid as you attend. If you need more, your physiotherapist shows you which stage criteria are still open, and each extra appointment is $230.
Questions we get asked
Will I need surgery?
Most people do not. Surgery becomes the clear answer when there is progressive weakness, when the red flag symptoms above are present, or when severe leg pain has not responded over a reasonable period. That decision belongs to you and a surgeon. What we can do is make sure the conservative route has actually been given a fair attempt first, and tell you honestly when we think it has not worked.
Should I be resting?
Not in bed. Prolonged rest makes disc-related pain worse and slows the return. What changes is which positions you spend time in, how long you sit, and how you get in and out of a chair or a car. Staying as active as the pain allows is the single most consistent piece of advice in the evidence.
Should I get an MRI?
If the red flag symptoms above are absent and the pain is improving, usually not. Disc bulges show up on scans of large numbers of people who have never had back pain, so an image often finds something that is not the problem. Where your symptoms suggest imaging would change the plan, we say so and refer you to a doctor.
What about medication?
That is a question for your doctor or pharmacist, not for us. Therapists assess, treat, prescribe exercise, educate and refer. Medication, injections and imaging sit with a doctor, and where you need one of those we say so and point you to the right person.
Can I still go to work?
Usually yes, often with changes to how long you sit, how you lift and how often you move. Staying at work in a modified form generally produces a better recovery than stopping altogether. If your job involves heavy lifting, we would rather talk about what a staged return looks like than sign you off and hope.
Where we are
Clinics across Singapore
ORCHARD
400 Orchard Road #12-12
Orchard Towers, S238875
NS22 Orchard MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Orchard →
WhatsApp 8800 1830TAMPINES
9 Tampines Grande #01-20
Asia Green, S528735
EW2DT32 Tampines MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Tampines →
WhatsApp 8780 9608SERANGOON
265 Serangoon Central Drive #04-269
S550265 · Lift C only
NE12CC13 Serangoon MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Serangoon →
WhatsApp 8892 4121TANJONG PAGAR
10 Anson Road #02-77A
International Plaza, S079903
EW15 Tanjong Pagar MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Tanjong Pagar →
WhatsApp 8227 7074JURONG EAST
2 Venture Drive #02-02
Vision Exchange, S608526
NS1EW24 Jurong East MRT
Opening 20 October 2026
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Jurong East →
WhatsApp 8242 7340Find out which stage you are in
Tell us how long it has been, whether the leg is worse than the back, and what you cannot currently do. Those three answers shape the whole plan.
Available at all clinics. $230 per 45 minute appointment, nett, no GST.
What our patients say
Google reviews from our clinics in Singapore.
