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. 



 

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.    

Can Chiropractic Help My Sacroiliac Pain?

Sacroiliac pain is a very common and annoying symptom that many people reports to us in our Frisco Chiropractic office. Weather the patient is a pregnant woman or an athlete sacroiliac pain is a common theme. Sacroiliac pain can be gradually built up due to dysfunction or can come on very suddenly and can cause pain while sitting, walking or doing your daily activities. In my experience sacroiliac pain is probably prevalent in about fifty percent of the patients we treat in our Plano Chiropractic office who complain of lower back pain.

Many people wonder how their condition arises or what makes it so annoying. The problems that we see is common sacroiliac dysfunction, dysfunction causes inflammation and inflammation causes pain. This means there is usually a pelvic unleveling and the pelvis is tilted causing dysfunction in both of the sacroiliac joints, both sides can become inflamed. Weather one side is overworking and the other is underworking this a problems on both accounts, we want the pelvis and the sacroiliac joints to function with symmetry as much as possible. Chiropractors try as much as possible to keep the body in a constant state of balance, having balance allows the body to function at peak performance and at this case with no pain or dysfunction. Chiropractic adjustment do wonders for keeping the sacroiliac joints free of problems.
    

The More About Chiropractic The Better!

In the recent issue of Dynamic Chiropractic it was reported that chiropractic adjusting was superior to medication for the treatment of lower back pain. Patients also reported longer lasting effects, felt healthier and felt greater satisfaction. This is something that chiropractors have known for eons in anecdotal cases, but it's good to get it backed up in a double blind randomized control trial, which is the gold standard of research methodology. The study continues to add credence that chiropractors should be the first line of defense in treating lower back pain which is the number one cause of loss of productive and disability in the world. Not only did chiropractic show superior results but take into account the fact the drug interaction claim one hundred and fifty thousand lives a year. Medical doctors should be bending over backwards to refer patients to the chiropractor of their choice.

The sad truth is many medical doctor will not see the research or let their bias get in the way of clear evidence the chiropractic is not only the most effective but also has the greatest satisfaction rate out of any healthcare provider. Once the evidence is published it usually takes about five years for the evidence to be applied clinically in the field. It takes the same time for a drug to stop being prescribed once it's ruled ineffective. Every chiropractic patient should spread the word that chiropractic is the best thing a patient can do in seeking musculoskeletal pain relief, they can help keep people healthy and perhaps off dangerous and ineffective medications. While some medications are helpful and needed there is just as many that are overused and dangerous. If you know someone who wants the best evidence patient care and be satisfied visit our Frisco Chiropractic office    

What Is Better For My Muscles, Ice Or Heat?

Well it really depends, both can be harmful and both can be helpful, it really depends on what stage of healing you are in. There are three types of phases during the healing process and your chiropractor will be able to identify and recommend which one is best for you. The phases of healing are the acute, sub-acute, and chronic. The acute phase is usually the first seventy-two hours of the injury, the sub-acute phase is from after the first seventy-two hour to two weeks, and the chronic phase is anything after two weeks.

Due to the physiological process of each phase cryotherapy or heat therapy can be indicated or contraindicated. The first phase is going to be the acute and ice phase, ice will be recommended to help decrease inflammation and help gate with the pain. The process of reducing the inflammation with help the tissues heal faster and regain functionality sooner. If heat is used in the acute phase, while it may feel good at the time, the next day will be extremely painful. Large gatherings of exudate or liquid will be present causing the area of injury to swell, also this swelling will promote pain, and the area of injury will be unusable for a few dates.

The next phase is the sub-acute phase which as stated above ranges from after the first seventy-two hours to two weeks. These phases can overlap and it's your chiropractors job to assess the current situation. In the sub-acute phase I still like to recommend ice treatment most of the time. The ice treatments continue to decrease pain, and only slightly decrease inflammation. If a patient has problems with ice I will recommend an ice-heat contrast therapy, with heat for ten minutes then ice to follow up. The ice-heat contrast therapy can act as a pumping acting to first bring the exudate to the area and the cold to contract and pump it away.

The last phase is the chronic phase, which is after two weeks from the injury date. During the chronic phase heat is going to be beneficial. The heat usually helps the tight muscles to relax and breath so to speak, most people also report just the general feeling that heat feels good. The heat seems to elongate the muscle fiber to make them more pliable meaning the muscle will be able to help preform a larger range of motion. Heat is also used in muscle work or reforming tissues, where the heat is used to relax and elongate the muscles and after the therapy ice is used to make sure the treatment does not have painful effects. If you have an injury it is always important to get it evaluated by your chiropractor first since they are experts in musculoskeletal injuries.  

How Do I Make My Immune System Better?

If you suffer from an erratic and unreliable immune system you may want to listen to this one. While the immune system and neuroimmunology is a rapidly growing field it is also not well understood, there is not a ton of research in the neuroimmunology field. So I will be explaining what we do know and how we can make your immune system and health function better. The immune system is responsible for keeping you healthy from disease and viruses, it can be your best friend and sometimes your worst nightmare. It can quell a serious infections or it can completely overreaction to something as little as dust or dander causing allergic symptoms such running nose, watery eyes, hives, shortness of breathe and other issues.

So first how does our immune work, when the immune system notices something that is foreign to the body it creates an immune response. The immune response is very complicated and still not completely understood, for simplicity sake we will just say the immune response bring cells and chemicals to the area also know as inflammation. Sometimes the inflammation is needed, other times it is completely overblown. So how do we get our immune system to work normally most of the time? How do we get it to work when we want to but not overwork at other times.

Well the first step is to reset the system so to speak. If you're not living a healthy life and you're walking around and very inflamed that's going to be a problem. We need to reset the system, and we need to do it naturally. The first suggestion would be to try to eliminate everything in the body that would cause inflammation and remove it from the diet. Well, how do I do that? This is the easy part, a food sensitive test which test up to three hundred different substrates will tell you what foods are pro-inflammatory so you can remove the food in question from your diet. Once those foods are eliminated you could have a reduction of the abnormal immune response.

Recent research also suggest from a systematic review of the literature at 9th Chiropractic, Osteopathy, and Physiotherapy Annual Conference in the UK in which Jack Neil of the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic showed that chiropractic adjusting could show a decrease of pro-inflammatory chemicals and an increase in antibodies (good reaction) involved in the immune reaction. Also noted is that chiropractic adjustments may increase the production of leukocytes which support the white blood cells in fighting off a threat  These immunological changes could show why chiropractic can decrease inflammation and pain while supporting overall wellness. In essence the two options touched upon could help in making your immune system function better. If you're interested in both chiropractic treatment and food sensitivity testing we can do both at Twisted Spine and Joint Center, visit our website at http://twistedspineandjoint.com if you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment.         

Should I Be Eating Seafood?

The simple answer should be yes in regard to you of course liking it. Seafood has a plethora of vitamins and minerals that are important in everyday body functions. Seafood is very high in protein and low in fat which makes it an excellent entrée for dinner. It is high in virtually every mineral and vitamin, most importantly iodine which is used to make thyroid hormones. The iodine mineral is somewhat lacking in land creatures and greens, with the exception of seaweed which is extremely high in iodine. Seafood sometimes gets a bad rap in the media in regard to sensationalism, but I assure you if you listen to a couple of rules to can get great seafood.

The rules are smaller the fish the better, when the fish are smaller they have less expose to mercury and other trace elements. Very young children should stay away from fish due to mercury levels could interfere with developmental processes. Adults have virtually no problems with mercury when eating fish at reasonable rate, although if you are worried smaller fish have less mercury.

The next rule is you want to be eating fresh caught fish, fresh fish is healthier due to them being in their natural habitat. If they are farm raised you don't know what they are eating and you don't know the amount of fish in a pin. They could be swimming in large pools of bacteria and excrement laden pools or ponds, not a pleasant picture. So the two rules in recap fresh caught and smaller the fish the better.

If you like fish but have problems eating fish because how it makes you feel you could have a food sensitivity to certain fish. Certain food sensitivity tests like the ALCAT test between a large range of different type of fish, depending on the test you may have to omit one fish and switch for another in your diet. The test can help you substitute other fish to eat to still gain all the nutrients and help you on your wellness path.