This work established a rodent model of discogenic low back pain that replicates key pathologies associated with painful disc degeneration in humans: extracellular matrix breakdown, inflammation, hypocellularity and aberrant innervation. These aspects of degeneration were correlated with pain-like behavior to determine which pathologies are most predictive of increased pain-like hypersensitivity. The L5-L6 intervertebral disc in female Sprague Dawley rats was approached ventrally and punctured bilaterally with a dissecting needle. While in the disc, the needle was swept along a 90-degree arc. Animals were housed for 18 weeks, and disc degeneration was measured real-time using microCT to calculate disc volume. The following pain-like assays were also performed bi-weekly: von Frey (referred hypersensitivity), grip strength (axial hypersensitivity), pressure algometry (deep pressure hypersensitivity), and the open field test. At the study conclusion, disc tissue was harvested, decalcified, embedded, sectioned, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin and via immunohistochemistry for nerve fibers, cells, and inflammatory cytokines. Injured animals exhibited a substantial and significant drop in disc volume following injury. Injured animals also displayed increased pain-like hypersensitivity to axial strain and deep pressure in the latter half of the study. No significant differences were found in the open field data indicating the injury may be too mild to detect spontaneous pain-like behavior in female rats. Post-processing outcomes yielded significant increases in extracellular matrix breakdown, inflammation, hypocellularity and aberrant innervation in injured animal discs compared to sham. This model proved highly successful due to significant increases in pain-like behavior, disc extracellular matrix breakdown, hypocellularity, inflammation and aberrant nerve sprouting in injured animals compare to sham. Also of note, twenty significant correlations were detected between selected outcomes including a moderate and highly significant correlation between a final two-week average of grip strength and nerve sprouting, suggesting nerve sprouting mediated hypersensitivity.