The Sciatic nerve is the large nerve that runs from your lower back down the back of your leg to your foot. Pain down the back of the leg is thus often called sciatic pain or sciatica. Pain down the leg can be caused by a disc lesion pressing on the sciatic nerve and other times by a referred pain to the leg caused by a painful spinal joint. If there is a disc herniation pressing on your sciatic nerve then you may also fell tingling or pins and needles and you may have trouble walking properly. Your chiropractor or doctor may have done a test where you lie on your back and they lift your straight leg to find that the movement is limited and painful. If it is a painful spinal joint referring pain down your leg then that test may be O K.
Treating Sciatica with Chiropractic
If it is a disc problem causing your sciatica then we treat it like other disc lesions, with caution and a combination of adjustments and traction followed by rehabilitation to prevent relapse. It is crucial in these cases to adjust only in directions that do not provoke pain. Often an adjustment to open up the opposite side to the disc bulge can make enough space to suck it back across. The result can be quickly monitored by rechecking the straight leg raising test to see if the leg comes up to a higher angle before pain starts. We have had many successful outcomes in the treatment of sciatica using massage, traction and spinal adjustment. This clinic has a lot of unique equipment for the treatment of the acute disc, such as; ambulatory traction (vertitrac) where you can walk around with traction on the lower bck, flexion distraction using an expensive Cox Zenith table from the U.S.A. and bed traction units. In the worse cases we put traction equipment in your bed at home; we have three bed traction units.
For leg pain that is referred from a painful spinal joint where there is no disc involvement then massage and spinal adjustments work quickly. Sometimes referred pain to the leg can cause ‘trigger points’ to be set up in the leg which can hurt even after the back is fixed. They required deep tissue massage to release them and what’s left of the pain goes. As with other disc problems it is necessary to learn how to sit and lift properly and to get your stomach muscles strong so that they can support your lower back and prevent the sciatica from returning. Also see ‘Back Pain’.