Sciatica & Trapped Nerves

When nerves are involved pain is often referred into the arms or legs and can be felt as pins and needles or numbness.

Often symptoms such as headache or referred pain to the shoulder can all come from the neck. Likewise pain referred into the buttock and legs often comes from the lower back even without experiencing back pain. The symptoms can extend down as far as the hand or foot and weakness can occur.

It is important to have time during treatment to do a careful assessment to find out what movements aggravate and what eases the pain. Depending on how irritable the pain is (this means how easily the pain is aggravated) treatment may need to be gentle and concentrate on calming the pain down. Postural advice, gentle mobilisations, acupuncture or electrotherapy are all effective methods.

Later on treatment is aimed at restoring movement and addressing soft tissue abnormalities, spasm and trigger points in muscles and then looking at prevention of further episodes.