Shead’s Davis has bad back Disc ruptured in soccer season

BANGOR – Think Shead’s Samantha Davis is a good basketball player?

Then this will amaze you: Davis, a senior guard, has been playing the whole season with a ruptured disc in her back.

Davis, who racked up 16 points and eight rebounds for the Tigerettes of Eastport in an Eastern Maine Class D semifinal win Thursday, said the injury happened in October during the soccer season, when her back would give out on her for no apparent reason while she was on the field.

“I just wanted to ignore it because I would go to the doctors and they would tell me to stop playing and I didn’t want to hear that,” she said. “I just figured it was a muscle problem.”

Eventually the pain was too much and Davis went for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test. The results revealed the ruptured disc. Doctors think Davis may also have hip bursitis that developed because she had been favoring one side of her body.

A rupture of the intervertebral disc, also known as a herniated disc, occurs when the cushion that sits between the vertebrae is pushed out of its normal position.

Davis said the doctor equated the injury to a jelly donut that had been squished. When the cushion bulges out, it compresses the nerves around the spinal cord, which causes the pain.

Davis takes “a lot” of ibuprofen.

“After games I’m usually in quite a bit of pain, but it’s nothing I can’t play with,” she said.

Davis said she won’t be able to play softball or tennis this spring because the twisting motion in each sport would be too much stress on her back.

Davis has had different opinions from doctors about her next step. Surgery’s not out of the question, but Davis said she doesn’t want to have to resort to an operation.