Yes We Can!
First, you have to understand what is sciatica. Sciatica is defined as a condition involving the sciatic nerve. It’s a group of nerves protruding out of the lumbar spine that controls movement and sensation in the legs and feet. It can have many symptoms ranging from pain, Numbness, tingling, Burning, muscle twitching, weakness, and complete loss of motion to your feet and toes. It can also affect different parts of the body such as your hip, the front of your thigh, glute pain, the back of your thigh, the shin, your calf, your feet, and your toes. Its been misdiagnosed as neuropathy of the feet where patients have burning pain in the toes and feet. It can even be misdiagnosed as plantar fasciitis which is pain on the bottom of the feet. The lumbar spine has 5 bones connected to the tailbone or sacrum. In between each bone is a disc that can become injured and weakened eventually creating a bulge that compresses the sciatic nerve.
So how does Chiropractic help?
Basic Chiropractic therapy’s main goal is to restore motion in your joints. When the joints are misaligned or not moving correctly this can cause the disc and joints of the spine to wear out and create bulging or herniated discs. The bulging disc now pinches on your nerve and causes pain down the path of the nerve to different parts of the leg or the entire leg.
Sometimes this treatment called the adjustment is not enough to release the pressure. Sometimes a visit can consist of physical therapy to help loosen the tight muscles and improve blood flow to the injured area so that it will heal faster. In our office, we include a therapy called decompression therapy. This is a special table that will either invert your body or uses straps to gently separate your discs with an adjustable force to relieve the pressure. It can take anywhere from 6 visits for a new injury up to 24 visits on average for a more severe injury. There typically is no pain with this therapy and it has been around for many years to help treat patients with spine pain.
So how do you diagnose sciatica?
If your having low back pain or any pain in your legs and feet or even numbness and tingling then you may have sciatica. The best way to diagnose it is to see your Chiropractor, who will perform an exam, orthopedic and neurological exam to determine the cause. Another way to diagnose sciatica would be an x-ray and if symptoms persist without results you may even need an MRI. If sciatica is caught and treated early enough it’s easily treated conservatively without medication, injections or surgery.
