Sciatica Chiropractic Treatment & Management
Back pain, muscle spasms or a pinched nerve can often hinder your day to day activities but when you start to feel the pain shooting down your legs, it’s time to call a chiropractor. These can be all signs and symptoms of sciatica which can begin with a herniated disc, misalignment of the spine or muscle spasm in the soft tissue around the low back. If left untreated, you could experience numbness, tingling or aching and cramping in your legs and in more severe cases, weakness or sharp shooting electric pain down the back of your leg or legs. . It’s important to seek treatment for any back pain and to confirm a diagnosis of sciatica with a medical professional.
How can a chiropractor help relieve sciatica?
Chiropractic treatment for sciatica is a gentle and natural way of treating your pain, relieving the symptoms but also finding the underlying cause. There are several treatment options available to treat and manage sciatica, but it will be up to our team at Gonnet Chiropractic on the best way to treat your symptoms.
Adjustments
Spinal manipulation or chiropractic adjustments, whatever you know it as; it’s one of the most common practices in the industry. At the core of chiropractic study is that the spine, nerves and muscles contribute greatly to a person’s wellbeing. In a spinal adjustment, our chiropractors will use their hands or a small instrument to apply a sudden force to the spinal joint. This force may cause some popping or clicking sounds as the misaligned vertebral bodies are restored to their proper position in the spinal column. Spinal manipulation frees restricted movement of the spine, helps reduce nerve irritability, muscle spasms, pain and other sciatica symptoms.
Spinal Decompression
Spinal decompression may sound a bit daunting; however, it simply means to relieve the compression on the nerves by stretching your spine. This therapy creates a space between your vertebrae so that your discs can creep or be moved back into their normal spot in the spine. This relieves pressure on the surrounding soft tissue and nerves.
Chiropractic Exercises
To help strengthen and repair your spine, chiropractic exercises may be prescribed by our team at Gonnet Chiropractic. We will show you how to do each exercise and advise how often they should be done. These exercises should also help with muscle growth which can release pressure on your spinal discs, relax your muscles to improve mobility and, as with all exercises, increase your endorphins to activate the body’s natural pain reliever. These exercises can also help address the functional imbalances that may have contributed to the problem in the first place.
Taping
When your back is in spasm or it feels unstable and weak twisting and bending can significantly increase your pain. Taping or strapping the lumbar spine for the lower back can help restrict any unwanted movement while your back has a chance to settle. The taping can also help provide compression to swollen and inflamed joints and tissues. By supporting or stabilising the back it can help reduce all the little unconscious aggregations such as when we are sleeping or bending over to grab something without thinking first.
Hot and Cold Therapy
Hot and cold therapy is an anti-inflammatory treatment recommended by chiropractors for those who want to try to help reduce the swelling and inflammation in the area. . Heat or hot therapy can often “feel nice” or soothing when your back muscles are in spasm. Heat may help relax the tight and sore muscles in the area. Cold therapy or ice is shown to help reduce swelling and inflammation which can irritate the sciatic nerve. Cold therapy should only be applied for a maximum of ten minutes and never directly onto the skin. Alternating hot and cold therapy is thought to have a flushing effect on the tissues which promotes blood flow to the area which can help with the healing response. Your chiropractor at Gonnet Chiropractic will understand which therapy is most suitable or whether it will be both and how to alternate between them.
Lifestyle Changes
Poor posture and workplace practices can often put a strain on your neck and back. Our chiropractors can recommend new ways to stand, sit, lift and even sleep so that your positioning is protecting the sciatic nerve from further pain and damage. These lifestyle changes are often simple enough but creating the habit is the tricky part, however, these adjustments will also help reduce the load on the back muscles, nerves and joints.
Treat your sciatica today, call our team at Gonnet Chiropractic on (07) 3886 4300.