Chiropractic Treatment for Sciatica

Sciatica?  Sciatica is the term given to pain that radiates along the sciatic nerve pathway. The sciatic nerve starts in the lumbar spine, goes to the top of the buttocks, down through the pelvis, and then posterior down each of the legs to the feet.  People usually only have sciatic pain down one leg at a time.  The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve of the body, about the size of your thumb, and it functions to connect the spinal cord to the leg and foot.  The staff at Twisted Spine & Joint has helped many people with this condition and can help you.

Typically, people who have sciatic pain suffer from misalignment of the pelvis, herniated disk, have osteophytes or bone spurs causing inflammation and pain, muscle dysfunction, tumors, infection, or injury to the lumbar spine.  This causes lumbar pain (lumbago), hip pain, leg pain, foot pain, and buttock pain.  Symptoms of sciatica include:  burning along the back of the leg, numbness of the leg &/or foot, cramping of the leg &/or foot, or tingling/paresthesia of the leg &/or foot.  Pain can increase with walking, sitting, driving, sit to stand motion, laying on affected side, bending, and standing too long in one place.

Misalignment or "subluxation" of the pelvis and lumbar spine can be present for years.  Three things cause pain:  1) change in position of a joint;  2) degeneration over time;  and 3) inflammation or muscle spasms.  Sciatica can occur suddenly due to injury, but it can also be due to an old or existing problem.  When different joints or levels of the spine are not moving smoothly, the nerves can become irritated due to inflammation and muscle spasms.  Previous injuries accumulate over our lives and conservative care should be the first choice when treating sciatic pain.   

Sciatica can be diagnosed with a proper medical history and physical examination.  Orthopedic tests are performed by a trained health professional to diagnose sciatica.  X-rays can be used to identify the cause, and sometimes advanced studies, such as lumbar MRI or CT scans are necessary. 

Conservative care is the first choice when treating sciatic pain.  Chiropractors treat sciatica with a series of prescribed adjustments, physical therapy to reduce muscle spasms, core exercises to balance the pelvis and back, stretching exercises to improve muscle balance and to improve spinal health.  If necessary, referrals are made for pain medication, anti-inflammatory medications, and even surgical procedures as a last resort. 



 

Why Do Some People View Chiropractic as Quackery?

This is a very good question...first we must find out what the definition of quackery is. Quackery is defined as doing a certain procedure or method for treating a patient with absolutely no evidence to substantiate the claim. While this term has been a moniker of alternative health practitioner it also applied to medical doctors as well. It's important to note that not all treatment forms are scientifically scrutinized and undergo rigorous clinical trials due to cost and time, and this is in every discipline. There is a systematic approach for making valid claims, just because there is antidotal evidence doesn't mean it's effective, but if it's the only evidence we have we can make a claim that it could be helpful. However, if there is not strong evidence prepare to possibly be called a quack with only your anecdotal evidence.

During the first years of chiropractic there was not a lot of randomized double blind control trails for chiropractic, hence the only evidence available was the antidotal evidence that the chiropractors told people about. Well, naturally people were skeptical of what the chiropractors were saying about their healthcare and they got labeled quacks by people whom had a vested interest in the elimination of chiropractic or who just didn't believe them. Fast forward to present day and there is a plethora of scientific literature that show chiropractic is effective for a wide range of musculoskeletal aliments, but some people don't read the current literature and employee simply what they heard in the past. You can equally call a medical doctor a quack as I stated above, for example the doctor is prescribing medicine that has no valuable therapeutic effect for a certain condition, which has been shown this in clinical trails, well you can label him a quack if you like.

In every healthcare profession there are things we do know and things we don't know. I would recommend not call anyone a quack because well, there may be no evidence today but there could be evidence tomorrow. Medical doctors for years have called chiropractors quacks because there was not much evidence, now the evidence has been published and that name has been subdued for the most part. There are some doctors who make extraordinary claims with very little evidence and go against everything we know about the human body scientifically, these doctors I would lump into the quack category. If you're a doctor who practices strict evidence based clinical healthcare by definition you cannot be a quack. The term quack, if you must, should be labeled on a person and not a group of healthcare providers, as I know some chiropractor who are more knowledgeable of scientific evidence than their medical counterparts. Take the opinion of the person and not the profession as a whole.    

Evidence Based Practice

The most important aspects in healthcare contains two important objectives, to get the patient better as quick as possible and to do it in the most cost effective way. How do we achieve these objects, while it seems difficult to do, it is actually quit the opposite. There is a large research base in this country and studies are being concluded each day. If you practice in a certain niche simply read all the possible studies in your field. If research is published that says a certain produced is better than the old one, implement the new one. If new research says a certain produce is no longer effective, stop doing it. This ebb and flow of eliminating and adding procedures should be happening on a a continual basis.

Unfortunately, this is not what is happening, despite the large amount of research in this country. There are certain procedures that have absolutely no evidence that it's therapeutic, but it's still being implemented in ever day practice. Another startling fact is that it take about ten years to implement new research in practical use, but what is even worst is that it take nearly twenty years to eliminate a procedure that has been deemed ineffective. So this mean twenty more years of insurance reimbursements and harmful medical invention.
Reading of the recent current literature is paramount in providing your patient with the best possible outcomes. At Twisted Spine and Joint Center, we implement the current literature up to date to get our patients better as quick as possible.    

Professional Athletes & Their Use of Chiropractic

Why are professional athletes using chiropractic more and more whether they are in pain or not? This is a great question and the answers lies in the effectiveness. Chiropractors allow athletes to get the most out of their body, allows them to recover faster, prevents injures, and optimize their performance. The proof is in the pudding that athletes know that chiropractor keep them on the field longer and if they do come off, it gets them back sooner. As of now almost all profession sports team in every sport have chiropractors on staff, including the Olympics. Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods, and other athletes have state that chiropractic care is one of the most importance factors that can be directly related to their success.

Since athletes use chiropractors so frequently why isn't everybody using chiropractic with a certain frequency. Chiropractic is beneficial to everybody, whether you're a high level athlete or a desk worker, injuries occur in both facets, the cause is just different. The athlete injury is usually from trauma and the desk worker injury is usually from micro-trauma that is usually built up over time. The injuries can almost be treated the same, once the injuries are treated you do the same type of preventive treatment for the athlete as we would for the average Joe. It's all about optimizing your body's performance and keeping it working correctly.    

Chiropractic Adjustments, Short Term Pain Remedy or Lifestyle?

The answer is yes, chiropractic can be what ever you want it to be. If you have pain and only want to get rid of it chiropractic can help. If you want to make chiropractic part of your bi-weekly or month schedule you can do that as well. Here at Twisted Spine and Joint Center while we like to help people as much as we can we can only tell you the benefits of chiropractic and it's your choice what you want to do with your condition of lifestyle. I can tell you a few things, first short term chiropractic will sometimes yield short term results. The chances are the symptoms did not show up overnight so they may not go away overnight. Once pain is gone, the area that was treated is very fragile and mostly likely not stabilized which can allow many of the symptoms to return. The proper way to fix a musculoskeletal problem is to decrease pain, stabilize and strengthen the area, and prevent future occurrences. Again, we will help you no matter what option you think is better for you, but based on our experience it's better to prevent problems then always try to fix reoccurring ones.    

Chiropractic & Overall Well-Being

It's so wonderful in our Frisco Chiropractic office to find patients who love to get the best out of their health. We treated a patient today in our office that reported he felt a wonderful sense of well-being. He stated for the first time in his life he feels wonderful well-being. I told him "that is exactly what chiropractic is about, of course we can help with pain but maximizing your health potential and getting the most out of your body is the number one goal".

Most patients do not realize this is the ultimate goal of health is to optimize their well-being. We want to help as many people as possible and obviously we will help you reach whatever your health goal is. We see many patients who understand getting out of pain when they have symptoms is important to them, we further lecture to them that if they continue to do what they did before their injury without maintaining or maximizing their health their symptoms will return, and they will be "yo-yo" patient. A "yo-yo" patient is a patient that only uses chiropractic as a method to get out of pain, they come in when their health status yo-yos down and ends care when their health status yo-yos back up.

We find in our Frisco Chiropractic office that patients who choose to use chiropractic as a tool to maximize their well-being, live healthier and better lives. They simply have less symptoms than the "yo-yo" patient and get the most out of their body weather it's training for a marathon to building a barn. As stated before we will help any patient that wants chiropractic and in our expert opinion can be helped by chiropractic, but wellness care in the long run will be more cost-effective and your body will definitely thank you for it. If you want to make chiropractic part of your life like so many people do visit our Frisco Chiropractic website.

   

What Is Next? I Was In An Accident

Having an auto accident is not a fun situation to be in, regardless of whom is at fault. Nearly ten million auto accidents happen per year in the US, which kill over thirty thousand innocent people. Texas is one of the states that has the highest population of deaths annually from auto accidents with over three thousand, part of that is due to the high population of Texas.
With the high amount of traffic on the road and the shear stats of accidents most people will be in an accident in one day or an other in their life. Twisted Spine and Joint Center compiled a list of some objectives that should be done shortly after an accident occurs.

1. Call law enforcement, make sure to give the person on the phone the address and cross roads of the accident so the police and ambulance if needed can find you easier. The police need to gather evidence for the accident while the ambulance can examine the injuries to transport the injured if needed.  
2. If possible try to move your car, leaving your car in the middle of the road can cause another accident as well, move to a parking lot if your care is drivable. If your car is not drivable put out road flares or orange triangle to alert other drives of a disabled vehicle. If you are injured stay in your car.
3. Make sure to get the important data from the other driver such as car, insurance, and personal information. This will help in facilitating the process to the insurance company.
4. Never admit the fault of the accident, even if you did cause it, you will be able to discuss it in time.
5. Try to remember and write down all the detail of the accident for the insurance to find liability, as well as take photos of both cars for damage.
6. If anybody saw the accident get the information on how to contact them and have them write a short statement on how the accident occurred. This can be helpful in court and for the insurance company to find who is liable.  
7. Try to have the police make out an accident report and ask the police officers to give you a copy for your records. If they don't give you a copy at the scene ask them where you can get a copy at.
8. Call your insurance company and open a claim not matter what kind of deal the other person in the accident tries to make. Even if they are willing to pay cash for your car.
9. Call Twisted Spine and Joint Center to be evaluated to see exactly what is wrong with you. We can also help you find an attorney that can help you. We can also refer you to the proper medical specialist to co-treat your injuries.

Not understanding the process after an accident can cost you both time and money when it comes to taking care important aspects after the accident. Here at Twisted Spine and Joint Center we can help refer you to an attorney that can make the legal process at little easier. You are entitled to your medical bills being pain, your car being repaired, and monetary settlement for future medical care if need. Don't let your rights be neglected visit your Frisco Chiropractor