How to avoid back, neck and leg pain

Today I’ve got a nice little chiropractic tip for you and it’s going to be a way that may help you improve your spinal health and your health overall.

It seems really simple, but it can have profound impacts and effects on your health.

For many, many years I’ve had people come to me with lower back pain and pain that actually radiates down to the leg. That’s a condition called sciatica because it involves the sciatic nerve, which is a nerve that is probably one of the largest nerves in your body. It’s about as big around as your thumb.

For something just as simple as having the person remove the wallet from their back pocket, that can actually take that pressure off from the nerve. I’ve seen lots and lots of patients with sciatica or pain down in the leg that actually was being caused by that pressure from the wallet on the sciatic nerve. I am going to demonstrate how that could happen.

This is Shannon and she’s going to help us with this. I know a lot of times girls don’t wear wallets but Shannon’s handy and this is going to demonstrate the point I’m going to make.

This is just a typical wallet that you might see anybody wear. It’s probably 1 inch to maybe 1 ½ inch thick. However, I’ve had patients that come in with wallets that are three times that thick. They stuff everything including the kitchen sink in here. And when they start sitting on that it can cause problems. So we are going to demonstrate how that can be.

So we are going to have Shannon put this wallet in her back pocket and then we’re going to take a look at her spine and see what kind of effect that will have on it.

Okay, so Shannon has got the wallet here in the right back pocket. And what in effect that’s going to do is it’s going to tilt her pelvis this way. When that happens it’s going to put a strain on this lower portion of the back here. That can oftentimes pinch the nerves in the lower back and cause that sciatic nerve which runs down through here to start having problems.

It can also put direct pressure on the sciatic nerve itself, which can end up causing problems, which is a pain down the leg, people can start having numbness and tingling in the leg or problems in the ankles. It can get very, very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable they can’t lie down or sit down; the only thing they can do is stand up or hold very still as it gets very painful.