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. 



 

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.

   

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.