Relieve Sciatica Pain with Top-Rated Exercises and Stretches: A Comprehensive Guide
Sciatica pain can be a debilitating condition, affecting countless individuals and hindering their daily activities. If you're searching for effective solutions to alleviate sciatica discomfort, incorporating targeted exercises and stretches can make a significant difference. In this blog post, we will explore the best exercises and stretches recommended by chiropractic experts to provide relief from sciatica and enhance your mobility.
Pelvic Tilt Exercise: A Core-Strengthening Wonder
The pelvic tilt is a simple yet highly effective exercise that targets the lower back and core muscles. Strengthening your core stabilizes the lower back and improves alignment, ultimately reducing pressure on the sciatic nerve. By adding the pelvic tilt to your routine, you can experience substantial relief from sciatica pain and enhance your overall flexibility.
Cat-Cow Stretch: A Gentle Yoga-Inspired Movement
The cat-cow stretch, inspired by yoga, offers a gentle way to release tension along the spine and promote flexibility. This flow of movements helps alleviate sciatica pain while enhancing the flexibility of your spine. Including the cat-cow stretch in your daily regimen can lead to noticeable improvements in sciatica symptoms.
Piriformis Stretch: Targeting the Buttocks for Relief
The piriformis muscle, situated deep within the buttocks, can compress the sciatic nerve when inflamed or tight, leading to sciatica pain. The piriformis stretch is an effective way to alleviate this pressure. By regularly stretching this muscle, you can significantly reduce sciatica symptoms and improve your overall comfort.
Knee to Chest Stretch: Releasing Lower Back Tension
The knee to chest stretch is an excellent way to release tension in the lower back and stretch the glutes and hamstrings. Loosening tight hamstrings can reduce their pull on the lower back, contributing to sciatica pain relief. Adding this stretch to your daily routine can lead to improved flexibility in your hips and lower back, lessening sciatica discomfort.
Hamstring Stretch: Easing Lower Back Strain
Tight hamstrings can exacerbate sciatica pain by putting strain on the lower back. The hamstring stretch is a fantastic way to address this issue. By incorporating this stretch into your routine, you can loosen tight hamstrings and alleviate pressure on the sciatic nerve, providing much-needed relief from sciatica pain.
Conclusion
Don't let sciatica pain hold you back from enjoying life to the fullest. Incorporate these top-rated exercises and stretches into your daily routine to experience relief and improved mobility. However, before starting any new exercise program, especially if you have underlying health conditions or concerns, it's crucial to consult a qualified chiropractor or healthcare professional. They can create a personalized plan to address your specific needs and ensure you're performing the exercises correctly for maximum benefit.
Take control of your well-being by embracing these exercises and stretches for sciatica relief. Consistency and patience are key, and with time, you'll find yourself moving more freely and experiencing less pain, allowing you to engage fully in the activities you love. Find comfort and relief from sciatica with these targeted exercises and stretches today!
Bulging and Herniated Discs
So you have been diagnosed with a bulging or herniated disc… What now? What does that mean?
The Anatomy Behind Your Discs
The vertebral disc in the spine is an interesting and unique structure. They are made of cartilaginous material but they have two distinct parts. The outside is made of tough fibers that protect the inner portion which is more of a gelatinous material. The easiest way to think about it is like a jelly donut.The discs throughout the spine have three primary functions:
They act as shock absorbers in the spine, positioned between each bony vertebra.
They act as tough ligaments that hold the vertebrae of the spine together.
They are cartilaginous joints that allow for slight mobility in the spine.
What Causes a Bulging Disc?
When a bulging disc, disc herniation or disc rupture occurs, it is typically due to either:
a pre-existing weakness in the annulus, or
a sudden increase in pressure through the disc causing fibres of the annulus to tear.
This can occur due to microtrauma, sudden unexpected load, as well as internal factors such as age and genetics.
How is a Bulging Disc Diagnosed?
Your chiropractor will do an examination looking at the range of motion as well as orthopedic testing to see if there are any signs of nerve compression and disc bulge. The most specific way of diagnosing a herniated disc is by using an MRI.
Treating a Bulging/Herniated Disc
Most bulging and herniated disc injuries are treated conservatively without the need for surgery. Your chiropractor will adjust you to keep your joints mobile and decrease pain as well as give exercises to increase strength around the disc to keep it protected while it heals. There are only a few factors that make it more likely for you to NEED surgery. First and foremost is loss of bladder or bowel Function. In some cases, such as when you lose bowel or bladder control, it is deemed an emergency and you may require immediate surgery. The second is progressive weakness. If you have noticed you getting weaker and weaker day after day it may require surgery. Last is the failure to progress with conservative care. If you notice that you have not made any progress with conservative care it may require surgery.
Sciatica
What is Sciatica?
Sciatica describes pain felt along the sciatic nerve, which runs from your low back, down through the hip, into the hamstrings, down into the calf, and into the foot. The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the body.
Common Causes of Sciatica
The cause of sciatica is compression on the sciatic nerve from a herniated disc, joint inflammation, compression of the nerve from bony arthritic growths, or a locked facet joint in the lower spine. Sciatica can also be caused by piriformis syndrome, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, and sacroiliitis but these are rarer. It is up to your doctor to take the clinical picture and develop a diagnosis based on the examination.
Who is most likely to get Sciatica?
Most people who get sciatica are between the ages of 30 and 50. Women may be more likely to develop the problem during pregnancy because of pressure on the sciatic nerve from the developing uterus.
How is Sciatica Diagnosed?
Sciatica is a clinical diagnosis based on your symptom description, the behavior of your pain, and a physical examination. While the diagnosis of sciatica is reasonably simple, the primary cause of your sciatica may require further investigations to eliminate or confirm its origin. It is also important to determine how significant your sciatic nerve has been compressed. Lastly x-ray or MRI may be needed if involvement at the low back is suspected.
Treatment of Sciatica
Most sciatica is treated conservatively without the need for surgery. You can take anti-inflammatory medication as well as ice or heat depending on what stage of sciatica you are in. Your chiropractor will adjust you to keep your joints mobile and decrease pain as well as give exercises to increase strength around the nerve to keep it protected while it heals. Specific treatment methods such as nerve glides, McKenzie exercises, or decompression therapy might be needed. If you have any specific questions please ask your chiropractor!
Depending on the severity of your symptoms your medical doctor can give injections for it and if needed even surgery can be necessary. Persisting symptoms over six months may require the attention of a surgeon who specialises in treating back pain and sciatica. If you have some severe symptoms such as bowel or bladder dysfunction or extreme muscle weakness you may require emergency surgery.
Is Chiropractic Safe During Pregnancy?
Approximately 50% of women will experience back pain during their pregnancy. So a question that I commonly get is is it safe to come in during my pregnancy?
Chiropractic care is usually a safe, effective practice during pregnancy. Not only can routine chiropractic care help manage pain in your back, hips, and joints, it can also establish pelvic balance. That can provide your baby with as much space as possible over the course of your pregnancy. This may lead to a faster, easier labor and delivery. There are no known contraindications to chiropractic care throughout pregnancy. All chiropractors are trained to work with women who are pregnant.
It’s safe for women to visit a chiropractor during the entire pregnancy. But keep in mind that a pregnant woman should not visit a chiropractor if she has the following: vaginal bleeding, ruptured amniotic membranes, cramping, sudden onset of pelvic pain, premature labor, placenta previa, placenta abruption, ectopic pregnancy, and moderate to severe toxemia. If you have any of the previous conditions you should speak with your OBGYN before scheduling a chiropractic visit.
The current literature reports favorable results on the use of chiropractic care throughout pregnancy for back pain, sciatica and other related conditions.
How does the adjustment work?
One of the most common questions that I get is how does the adjustment work? Bear with me as this goes from least nerdy to most nerdy.
So let's talk about it in its most basic terms. In its most basic terms a chiropractic adjustment gaps the joints that are restricted or non-mobile. This allows a small amount of movement where the joint was not able to move usually no more than a few millimeters. If you can't tolerate the manual adjustments, you may instead receive mild or non-force techniques. You may hear a popping noise during a chiropractic adjustment but, contrary to popular belief, that’s not the sound of cracking bones. It’s the formation of gas from the spinal joints when they are “gapped”. The nerdy term for this is tribonucleation.
Getting even nerdier and diving deep into what an adjustment does... The adjustment distracts the facet joints(spinal joints) as we talked about before but it also causes intradiscal pressure to decrease briefly which can be helpful for disc bulges. Forceful stretching of the paraspinal muscles occurs, which induces relaxation via spinal nerves and stretch reflexes.
Last and most nerdiest but also least understood is the effect on the brain. Studies have measured associated responses of hypoalgesia (less pain) and sympathetic activity on the supraspinal mechanisms which is a part of your brain that includes the anterior cingular cortex (ACC), amygdala, periaqueductal gray (PAG), and rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) which are considered instrumental in the pain experience. This is why some studies have shown changes in the opioid system (pain relief), dopamine production (pleasure hormone), and central nervous system.
I know all of this was very nerdy but if you have any specific questions please ask your Oak Ridge Spine and Sport.
What to Expect at the First Chiropractic Visit
Chiropractors can adjust your spine and other joints to relieve pain and improve function. Chiropractors call this manipulation or adjustment. But chiropractic care includes more than spinal adjustments and chiropractic care can also include exercises, soft tissue therapy, and passive modalities.
As with any other doctor visit, the first visit starts with your medical history and a physical exam.
You can expect to be in the office for your first visit for 45 minutes to an hour depending on how complicated your complaint is. Your chiropractor will ask about your medical history and your symptoms. Tell your chiropractor about:
When and how did the pain start?
Where is the pain felt?
Describe the pain—is it sharp, dull, searing/burning, or throbbing? Does it come and go, or is it constant?
What activities/circumstances make it better or worse?
Any past injuries and medical issues.
Any medications you take
Your lifestyle habits including exercise, diet, stress, and sleep
Afterward the physical examination will take place.
Specific orthopedic and neurological tests may also be used to assess the:
Range of motion
Muscle tone and strength
Neurological integrity
Further tests may be necessary to assess the injured area, such as having the patient move in a specific manner, posture analysis, or evaluate the motion of the affected body part.
Last but not least your Chiropractor will determine if X-Rays are needed to reveal any bony abnormalities such as fracture, spondylolisthesis, and alignment issues.
Maintenance Care
One of the common questions I get is people wondering if they will have to come back for the rest of their life. It's a great question but the answer is more complex than a simple yes or no. Like most things in life, it depends. It depends on how long you have had your pain, what kind of pathology is going on, if it's chronic vs episodic and how much it impacts your day to day life. Most people will require some form of on-going care because like your teeth and going to the dentist or like going to the gym your spine requires you to look after it.
Low back pain is one of the most common and costly healthcare problems affecting society, and it is also the leading cause of activity limitation and work absence around the world.
After the doctors at Oak Ridge Spine and Sport get you out of pain we may make recommendations to reduce the risk of a future episode (or at least minimize its severity should one occur). These recommendations may include adopting a fitness routine, dietary modifications, specific exercises, foot orthotics, and/or routine “maintenance” chiropractic adjustments, such as once a month or every six weeks.
Although further research is necessary to more clearly understand precisely how maintenance care works to reduce the risk of future episodes of back pain, researchers currently hypothesize that such treatments may improve any biomechanical or neuromuscular dysfunctions before they become symptomatic. Studies published in both 2004 and 2011 as well as the most recent Nordic study note that patients with chronic low back pain who received maintenance care for nine months reported less pain and disability than participants who did not receive ongoing care.
How long will it take before I start to feel better?
I’m going to start with my favorite answer that no one likes to hear. It depends. There are a couple of factors that will impact how long it takes you to respond to your treatment though.
Age
The younger you are the more likely you will respond quicker to a treatment plan. The older you are the more likely it's going to take a bit longer. And that's not even counting in the fact that as you age you are more likely to have other injuries impeding your healing.
Fitness level
If you live an active lifestyle with regular exercise and moderate activity on a daily basis, you'll respond much quicker to treatment.
How long you've been in pain
If this is a chronic condition that you have had for years it may take longer to heal. This is just one reason why you should almost never wait it out and see if your pain is going to go away on its own.
The type of injury you have
As you may already know some injuries are more significant than others and take longer to heal. Some injuries may not feel significant but due to the anatomy and physiology of the injury it could take much longer for the body to heal. A great example of this is with disc herniations. Certain areas of the disc are avascular(meaning without blood flow) and can take much longer to heal than a disc tear that has great blood flow.
It's never possible to know exactly when you will respond to treatments, or how many treatments you may need. But here at Oak Ridge Spine and Sport we will try to give our best estimate of when you will heal.
However, if you're the type of person that needs to see numbers, there are a few we can give you.
It depends on the type of injury you have
Bone injuries heal the quickest at 5-6 weeks.
Ligament and tendon injuries take a little longer than that, needing 6-8 weeks.
Discs and cartilage will take the longest and need at least three months to heal.
Again, these are all averages, and individual healing times will vary.
The severity of the injuries will also play a roll in how long it takes for you to respond to treatment.
How Safe is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic is widely recognized as one of the safest drug-free, non-invasive therapies available for the treatment of neuromusculoskeletal complaints. Although chiropractic has an excellent safety record, no health treatment is completely free of potential adverse effects. The risks associated with chiropractic, however, are very small. Many patients feel immediate relief following chiropractic treatment, but some may experience mild soreness, stiffness or aching, just as they do after some forms of exercise. Current research shows that minor discomfort or soreness following spinal manipulation typically fades within 24 hours.
Neck pain and some types of headaches are treated through precise cervical manipulation. Cervical manipulation, often called a neck adjustment, works to improve joint mobility in the neck, restoring range of motion and reducing muscle spasm, which helps relieve pressure and tension. Neck manipulation, when performed by a skilled and well-educated professional such as a doctor of chiropractic, is a remarkably safe procedure.
Some reports have associated high-velocity upper neck manipulation with a certain rare kind of stroke, or vertebral artery dissection. However, evidence suggests that this type of arterial injury often takes place spontaneously in patients who have pre-existing arterial disease. These dissections have been associated with everyday activities such as turning the head while driving, swimming, or having a shampoo in a hair salon. Patients with this condition may experience neck pain and headache that leads them to seek professional care—often at the office of a doctor of chiropractic or family physician—but that care is not the cause of the injury. The best evidence indicates that the incidence of artery injuries associated with high-velocity upper neck manipulation is extremely rare—about one to three cases in 100,000 patients who get treated with a course of care. This is similar to the incidence of this type of stroke among the general population.
If you are visiting your doctor of chiropractic with upper-neck pain or headache, be very specific about your symptoms. This will help your doctor of chiropractic offer the safest and most effective treatment, even if it involves referral to another health care provider.
When discussing the risks of any health care procedure, it is important to look at that risk in comparison to other treatments available for the same condition. In this regard, the risks of serious complications from spinal manipulation for conditions such as neck pain and headache compare very favorably with even the most conservative care options. For example, the risks associated with some of the most common treatments for musculoskeletal pain—over-the-counter or prescription nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) and prescription painkillers—are significantly greater than those of chiropractic manipulation.
What is the Training of a Chiropractor?
One question that many people seem to have about chiropractors concerns the amount of schooling required in order to practice. I have people ask me if it's an online certificate or a bachelor degree at least once a week. So I wanted to go through what it takes to become a Chiropractor.
Most chiropractors have already taken close to four years of pre-med undergraduate courses before they even apply to chiropractic college. This includes biology, physics, psychology, inorganic and organic chemistry, and all of the associated lab work.
If you are accepted into an accredited chiropractic college, then the really demanding work begins. You’ll work through four to five academic years, which includes a lot of time learning the hands-on adjusting techniques that will become a big part of your practice.
Students of chiropractic care must spend a minimum of at least 4,200 hours with their teacher, and a minimum of 1,000 hours of fully supervised clinical training with an instructor as they learn the appropriate diagnosis and treatment techniques to help heal your body and restore it to its natural, fully functioning state.
To become a practicing chiropractor, you will need to pass a series of exams from the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners or NBCE. You will take Part I during your second year of chiropractic school, and it includes questions about general anatomy and physiology, spinal anatomy, pathology, chemistry, microbiology and similar subjects. You'll take Part II during your third year, and it covers chiropractic practice, general diagnosis, diagnostic imaging, neuromusculoskeletal diagnosis and other specialized topics. You can take Part III and Part IV six to nine months after you graduate. Part III covers case history, case management, clinical exams and chiropractic techniques. Part IV tests more advanced case management and chiropractic techniques.
After you pass these national tests, you can apply for a license in your state. And that is the general process to become a Chiropractor!
How to Spot a Bad Chiropractor
Like in every profession there are good and bad practitioners. This applies to Chiropractors as well and in this blog I will give 3 warning signs of a bad Chiropractor. These guidelines don't apply 100% of the time but will give you a general idea if you are going to a bad Chiropractor.
Excessive Visits
One of the first warning signs to look for is whether the chiropractor schedules excessive visits. If your chiropractor suggests a 3, 6 or 12 month commitment after only the first or second visit, view that as a red flag.
With regular attendance to scheduled appoints, injuries heal over time. As the condition of the muscles and joints improves, the pain desists. In turn, fewer appointments will be required until eventually care is no longer needed.
No Re-Examinations
Without re-examinations or progress checks we will have a much more difficult time assessing the prognosis of the injury and how the treatment plan is going. A BAD chiropractor will rush through or even skip the examination process just to get you adjusted and then scheduled for your next appointment.
Scare Tactics
When you visit the chiropractor, typically you are not dealing with a life or death situation. There are exceptions to this, of course, but if you are relatively healthy aside from your back problems, chances are your life is not in immediate danger.
If, during your initial visit, you get the sense that your chiropractor is trying to scare you into coming back for a second visit, this is normally a red flag that something isn’t right with the practice. The physician may exaggerate your condition or insist you are in need of several visits per week. If your first visit with a doctor leaves you feeling frightened, you should consider a second opinion.
How to Spot a Good Chiropractor
A good chiropractor will do a thorough history and examination to help find the source of the issue and develop a plan to help you get through it. A good chiropractor will explain not just what you need but why you need it. While it is important to know that we can help you, I think it is just as important to know what your injury is and what you need to do about it.
A good chiropractor will give you time during your visits to talk about how your treatment plan is going and to answer any questions you might have.They will also be eager to help you get better as quickly as possible and to empower you to take care of yourself in the future. They will be friendly and courteous.
Reading what other people have to say about a chiropractor can provide insight into how the chiropractor provides care, as well as how his or her practice is operated. Patient reviews typically talk about their experience with scheduling appointments, wait times, office environment, and office staff friendliness. You can learn about how well patients trust the chiropractor, how much time he or she spends with their patients, and how well he or she answers questions.
Choose a chiropractor with whom you are comfortable talking and who supports your information needs. When you first meet the chiropractor, ask a question and notice how he or she responds. Does he or she welcome your questions and answer them in ways that you can understand? Find a chiropractor who shows an interest in getting to know you, who will consider your treatment preferences, and who will respect your decision-making process.