If you have a protrusion instead of a bulge, or even if you have a bulge caused by a contained herniation of the annulus (contained by the PLL - posterior longitutinal ligament); then you have a hole in the fibers that is holding in the disc nucleus material (the consistency of crab meat.)
Evacuate the disc space, means to go inside the disc with little grabbers and removing most of the disc nucleus. This leaves the disc essentially hollow. There is still the surrounding annulus which can be quite strong and support you. Hopefully, the disc will fill in with fibrous tissue and remain tall.
If you don't evacuate the disc space, there is a bunch of crab meat and you still have a hole in the annulus that you can squirt it out through... hence the term recurrant herniation, or repeat disc protrusion.
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