Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green! Join us as we explore health, wellness, and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life
Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
EP #5: Chiropractic Care for Sciatica Relief
Unlock the secrets to conquering sciatica pain with Dr. Matt Green as he dispels myths and offers practical wisdom on managing this common condition. Ever wondered how something as simple as sitting on a wallet could aggravate your sciatic nerve? Join us to explore this and other everyday habits, as well as the role of posture and chiropractic care in alleviating discomfort.
Visit villagechiropracticoakland.com to learn more.
A lot of people say you know, I think I have sciatic. I'm not sure what it is, I just kind of have this pain. So here it is. This is what is the way it's defined is that when there's pain going down or traveling along the pathway of the sciatic nerve and so how that? How people feel that is that it comes from the low back and it goes down through the hips and around, down through the butt, down through the back of the thigh, and if it's more of a serious issue, then it's going to go below the knee welcome to the village chiropractic and wellness podcast with your host, dr matt green.
Speaker 2:Join us as we explore health, wellness and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life. Let's dive into today's episode well.
Speaker 3:welcome listeners and viewers. I'm charlie mcdermott and I am the co-host producer. I'm here to support Dr Matt and help us with everything. Technology Number one, right, dr Matt? Thanks.
Speaker 1:Charlie, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Right, that's for sure. And then have these, these great conversations. I know you're getting awesome feedback and that's what this show is all about Helping anyone, and certainly in your neck of the woods in the Oakland area. But you have and, by the way, for those of you who don't know, dr Matt, with Village Chiropractor and Wellness Center, boy what and again. I'm going to keep loading compliments on you, dr Matt. But it's been not only a pleasure doing these episodes, but I'm learning a lot personally, and I know this episode that we're going to get into today is one that just I'm going to guess a good percentage of your patients struggle with this, and that's chiropractic care for sciatica relief. Is sciatica a big deal in your neck of the woods or is it just a Florida thing?
Speaker 1:It is. It is you know, just as I'm thinking about this and talking about this, about what a wide audience this has. I mean, without doing any stats, I would imagine probably somewhere about 20% of the people that come in every month with this symptom or some version of sciatica pain going down the leg. So I'm happy for us to talk about it. The purpose really here is to shed some light on what it is, so that people can have some understanding, because certainly the more we understand about what is going on with our body, the easier it is to find the solution and to be in action to, you know, get rid of it.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you, it's perfect timing for me and my family because, as we talk, my wife's parents, barb's parents, flew in from Pennsylvania to Florida, from Pennsylvania to Florida, and her mom, my mother-in-law. It's hard for her to go a distance. Literally walking around the house is about the extent of it, and it's such nice weather here and it's heartbreaking to know that she just can't enjoy it. She can't really get out there and be active because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's no good. So, I hope anybody else who's suffering from that, or knows somebody who's suffering from that, will get some good knowledge from what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 3:All right, well, I'm taking notes, so here we go. So let's get into, I guess, start with the common causes and symptoms associated with sciatica.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure. Let's talk about what it is first, though.
Speaker 1:A lot of people say you know, I think I have sciatica. I'm not sure what it is, I just kind of have this pain. So here it is. This is what is the way it's defined is that when there's pain going down or traveling along the pathway of the sciatic nerve, and so how that? How people feel that is that it comes from the low back and it goes down through the hips and around, down through the butt, down through the back of the thigh, and if it's more of a serious issue, then it's going to go below the knee, it's going to go down the calf or maybe in front of the leg and underneath the foot or on the top of the foot and sometimes even into specific toes. That's what sciatica is, sciatica syndrome. They're all talking about that pain.
Speaker 3:So it can I mean it can extend as far as the toes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as far as sometimes in the big toe, so because that's where the nerves are traveling up into into the low back. Um, people can experience this in. It could be a sharp stabbing or burning pain, it could be numbness, it could be tingling, it could even be weakness of the leg, where people are having trouble lifting their leg or moving the leg when it becomes more and more serious.
Speaker 1:So that's how well I was just going to say that. You know, that's how people are experiencing it. So if anybody has pain that's going down from the low back down through the hips, down the back of that leg and even sometimes below the knee, then that's what sciatica is. That's the way. Cause of sciatica? Well, it's either compression or irritation or inflammation of that nerve. The analogy that I was thinking about is like I have two younger kids, and if my older kid was to grab my younger kid and put him in a headlock and tickle his nose, he's not going to be in a state of ease, right? He's going to be in a state of distress. And so what's the first thing that you would think that he's going to do? If he's in a state of distress, what's he going to do, Charlie?
Speaker 3:He's going to lash out. I would imagine yeah, he's going to lash out, but he's also going to call.
Speaker 1:He's going to lash out. I would imagine, yeah, he's going to lash out, but he's also going to call. He's going to call for somebody. Right, he's going to yell, he's going to scream, he needs attention. He's like, hey, somebody get my older sibling off me and stop putting me in the headlock there. And so that's what's happening with the sciatic nerve. Right, there's structures that have it in a headlock nerve. Right, there's structures that have it in a headlock. And you know it's it's. And a lot of times, by the time people come to see me, that's it's. It's yelling and screaming for mom and dad and screaming for help, the things that cause that.
Speaker 1:And here's, here's where we're going to get into what my job is. My job as a chiropractor is to find the cause. I want to get to the cause of that problem and fix it. So we have to figure out where's the main cause of that problem, and it's going to either be right there at the spine, where that nerve exits the spine, or it's going to be somewhere along that pathway. And so my job is to do certain neurological tests. We want to test the sensitivity along that area, we want to test the strength, we want to test the reflexes along that area and if there's anything of those that's positive, and if there's anything of those that's positive, then we're going to know and be highly suspicious that the root of that cause is right there at the spine.
Speaker 3:And, Doc, when you say test, are you like testing the strength of?
Speaker 1:the leg. We're just testing the strength. There's certain what are called dermatomes yeah, we'll just say it. There's certain what are called dermatomes yeah, we'll just say it. So there's certain dermatomes places lines along the skin that are dedicated towards specific places in the spine. So let's say that big toe and along the top of the leg. If that is the part that's specifically numb or weak, then we're going to be suspicious of the nerve that is going directly into L5.
Speaker 1:It's going to go a little bit more along the back of the thigh, along the side. We're going to be more suspicious of L1, L2, L3. So these are ways for us to sense and if I do a little sensitivity test on one side and the other, in the place where they're having symptoms, they can't really feel that and they can feel the other side. Again, these are all symptoms of the nerves not functioning and I can get a sense of the severity of the problem as well as where it's originating.
Speaker 3:So then it sounds like, based on the location of the pain, you kind of have some help in diagnosing where it might be coming from. So my follow-up to that is right. What about the type of pain you you mentioned? You know some might feel like a knife, like in their back, or yeah, what are you able to? Does that help at all with the diagnosis? Is that you really?
Speaker 1:yeah, not, not really. Uh don't know what kind of uh, you know there's all languages of the brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah to tell the right. So I'm not sure. You know the the symptoms, specific symptoms don't give us a sense, although you know, uh, it gives me a, a starting point, yeah, of the severity. But again I've had people come in with like really severe symptoms and they come in the next day and they say, oh doc, thanks, I'm about 80 percent better. Sometimes people come in the next day and they're like, no, it didn't change, yeah, so you know, again, the symptoms don't tell the whole story. So, but again, they're a starting point and also they're also a signal for me in terms of do I need to send this person out to get x-rays or an MRI, some type of imaging?
Speaker 3:Okay, and is there? Does the pain progress typically Like if I have it? Let's say, I feel the pain in the back of my thigh. Will that, if I don't address it, tend to go further down, creep down to my calf and my foot or toes? Or is it not more so Again? Don't know.
Speaker 1:Again, don't know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It just depends.
Speaker 1:For every person, right, yeah? So yeah, okay, okay, it's just different for every person, right?
Speaker 3:So, yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why you're around, if it were that easy right, yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:I think the thing for me to be rooted in is how well or how well is it not functioning?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if somebody comes in and the joints and through that area are really rotated and stuck and the muscles are incredibly tight, and over the next three to five visits, those joints are moving, starting to move well, and those muscles are starting to soften, even if their symptoms stay the same.
Speaker 1:I can look them in the eye and say this area is functioning better and it's not going to be long before the body doesn't need to yell and scream so much because it's functioning better. It doesn't always happen like right away, but over the long term, when a body functions better, it feels better. Happen like right away, but over the long term, when a body functions better, it feels better, yeah, yeah. So that's what I try to to stay rooted in when I'm talking with people is that the symptoms might go up and down, but I'm really going to do my best to reflect back to like how well, uh, is it functioning? How much of is? Is it changing? And if it's not changing over a period of time, then what other actions do we need to do to again get the information that we need to?
Speaker 3:Okay, okay. So you've done your diagnosis. You have an understanding of what's going on, so let's jump into the treatment approaches.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure. So we were talking about the causes, right, compression, right, irritation and or inflammation and the things that ultimately cause that are an unhealthy joint. And we're talking about a joint, it's the relationship between two bones, it's the space in between two bones and just I'm going to just use the dentist analogy probably every podcast here, because it's so good and so well understood by people is that in your mouth you have two bones. You have the bones of your skull and then your teeth. But those joints don't move. So we have to do the moving for them, right, we have to brush and we have to floss to keep the soft tissue around it healthy.
Speaker 1:Well, the joints and through our low back, where that sciatic nerve is originating, they move, and if they move on a regular basis, then that's the way that the body keeps it healthy. It kind of naturally brushes and flosses itself. So if that's not happening, then that joint is going to begin to deteriorate. And a lot of people come to me after they've had x-rays, or I send them x-rays and they get back the diagnosis degenerative joint disease or degenerative disc disease that seems to be fairly common for folks, things that I think that's a term that people are familiar with.
Speaker 1:So that's one.
Speaker 1:And when that joint begins to deteriorate, it gets smaller and smaller and the area in which that nerve has to travel out gets smaller and smaller and gets more and more compressed. And when that area gets compressed the brain triggers into its panic mode or its protection mode and is going to use two things it's going to contract muscles and send inflammation to that area. So again, getting to the root cause of the problem, we want to get that area to function well, so we want to return the normal motion of those joints so that it can naturally again brush and floss itself and keep that soft tissue healthy. And so that's what the chiropractic adjustment is made for. And again, I always want to underline that that adjustment is always personalized.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people get concerned. I had somebody who was upstairs in the offices above and they came down and they've been having great results and they went back up and she was like boy. People are starting to ask me like hey, did it hurt? Was it too much? It's a lot of the concern for folks, especially, I can imagine, if you're having sciatic pain. Yeah, you're imagining somebody on a tiktok video like doing all the things they do, jumping on them. That's not going to happen in my office. I'm going to be personalized to what your needs are, but anyway, so we want to you're at.
Speaker 1:Your question was is like what kind of treatments are we going to do in the office to help this? It's like one is just return the normal function of those joints, just that one can help the brain shut off from its protective mode and go back into just doing everything normally, so that the muscles will relax and the inflammation will go down. So that's one. And then number two, the specialized kind of soft tissue work that I do active release technique has very specific protocols for sciatica just in terms of how do we I want to say how do we kind of separate that nerve from that tissue? That nerve is meant to just glide easily through those muscles and how do we return it to that state as easily as possible? So the short answer to your question is just good, specific chiropractic adjustments to return normal function to the spine and very specific kind of soft tissue work that gets that nerve to glide more easily. Bring more ease, more ease to the body, gotta love that.
Speaker 1:Like ease.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you've got so many success stories with your patients. What comes to mind a patient that went through this and got on the other side?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the first one. He's in his mid-40s, very athletic. His dad was a professional athlete, he was a semi-professional athlete. Being active is very important to him and he's had this pain going down his leg for a long time. We got it so that the front part of his leg is still numb, but he can now go back to being active. He can play basketball. He can do the things that he wants, as long as he does his exercises.
Speaker 1:Specific stretches comes in periodically to make sure that everything stays functioning. But there's a great example of like what's most important. What's most important is that he lives the life that he wants to live. He still has those symptoms. He has that, as you know. He's accepted that. If it leaves, great. If not, then that's what he's going to deal with. But he can still do the things that he wants to do. So that's one. And number two is I had a woman come in about mid-30s Again, classic sciatica syndrome.
Speaker 1:But she had been told for so long that she needed to stretch. She needed to stretch, and so she was doing all these stretching protocols and nothing was working. But when I told her that we're all along, somewhere along the spectrum, some people, some of us are wrapped super tight. It's just our constitution and some of us are super loosey goosey, some of us are super flexible and she's very flexible and so when I pointed that out and I said that I think the answer to your problem is to bring more strength, do more strength exercises around that area and once she started doing that and stop just mild, easy stretching, um, but she eased up on the stretching and really strengthened that area, fixed it almost right away and she was so thankful. So it's really important. Um, I think that's the other thing. That's that that's the benefit of coming in and seeing me or seeing a chiropractor is that not only are you getting good adjustments in the soft tissue work, but you get the guidance and the perspective in terms of pointing you in the right direction there.
Speaker 1:And then there's a gentleman in his 70s and I just got to chuckle because that one was fairly easy, but he just wasn't exercising, he just wasn't moving, and so I just had him just start walking. So, with the adjustments and the soft tissue work, he just started just gentle walking. He had in his mind that in order for him to exercise, he had to go to the gym, he had to do all these things and we really just bring it down Like let's just start with the basics. Let's just start like just getting your body moving and just doing some real basic rocking your back back and forth, taking your foot like you're putting on your sock, put it on your knee, cross, you know, cross that, cross your leg and just do some just gentle hip stretches. You know.
Speaker 1:He just came in the other day. He's like man, it only takes me 20 seconds for each one of those and now we just go out for walks, nice and easy. He was like thanks so much for making that so much easier than what I thought there. So those are all great examples.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it is amazing. I was in the health club business. I had a chain of health clubs and I would go and talk to the general public on a regular basis and I would let everyone know. You know, the difference in your we'll just call it level of health from being inactive to just going out and walking around the block is way more significant than going from being active and joining a gym. You know, you, you're right, you don't need to join a gym. But if you're and I can, I can envision, you know, that gentleman in his 70s, you have this pain. The tendency is probably just to kind of close up and not move, because, one, it hurts and two, you're probably thinking you're going to do more damage. So you, you, you're less and less active, which is not a good thing.
Speaker 1:Right, oh yeah, exactly, exactly. I'm a big fan of Jim's, for sure Big fan. Love him, love, love, exercise, and for him, that was the stopping point for him. Love him, love, love, exercise, and for him, that was the stopping point for him. Maybe one day, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll, notch it up and he'll, he'll, he'll take it to the next level.
Speaker 3:But you know just like you said, he just needed to yeah, one step at a time, yeah, yeah, well, kind of related to that, lifestyle changes exercises. What can we do to keep that sciatica issue from reoccurring?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Obviously I always wanted to speak about the preventative measure. It's always good to have regular body work, have regular chiropractic care, regularly stretch, regularly exercise. That's the best thing for us to do, obviously, before the symptoms come. Other things like, especially when we're sitting, we just want our low back to be stacked right on top of itself. We talked about this last time like sitting on a wedge will rock that low back forward.
Speaker 1:Having a low back brace, having some kind of I mean a low back support, somebody to rock that belly button forward so that that low back is sitting right on top of itself. Boy, when we sit back and we slouch, that just puts such excessive stress on that very base of the spine. So we want to get the stress off. Sleeping, sleeping on our stomach, it's going to do the same thing. It's going to close those joints and through that low back, maybe if we catch ourselves sleeping on our stomach, here and there we got to turn on our side or on our back. But when it's a regular pattern to sleep on our stomach, it just closes those joints, puts an excessive stress on the back of those joints. So again, we want to decrease the stress on that low back. Carrying a wallet carrying a wallet and sitting having a wallet in your back pocket, not a problem.
Speaker 1:But when you sit you want to take that wallet out. There's a chiropractic technique called SOT and where it uses specific blocks to block the pelvis. It's so subtle. It's not a technique that I typically use a lot, but when I've had it it just seems like it's not doing anything and then afterwards I feel so good, but it's so subtle and when you have that wallet in that back pocket you're offsetting that pelvis. And when that's a regular pattern that can put excessive stress. That wallet is right where that static nerve exits, so it's putting excessive stress on that muscle. Uh, right there.
Speaker 1:Um, you know the one more long term. You know, when we're gaining weight and we great, and we have a nice big belly that's rocked forward, that's going to put, that's going to rock our body forward. Our body's going to put that's going to rock our body forward. Our body's going to have to. You know, gravity's always pulling on it. So now we have to do work harder to bring ourselves back to center and that can put a lot of excessive stress on that low back.
Speaker 1:And you know. Finally, you know, whenever we've experienced any kind of dramatic one-time stress, experienced any kind of dramatic one-time stress, a big, major fall, a car accident, something that has really something that's really thrown us off. It's really important to get checked and to make sure that those joints haven't been thrown off to the side, because if they're not checked and corrected that the pain might go down but that problem might persist. And who knows, it could be a few weeks, a few months, a few years before the wear and tear of that accident has caused wear and tear to that joint and can irritate that nerve and bring on the sciatica.
Speaker 3:All right, Good, good stuff. Speaking of you, touched on a few things. One for your listeners who didn't see the last episode regarding posture I want you to know. Every morning I wake up and I do those neck stretch.
Speaker 1:Good old. Yes, no, maybe so's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's helping because I'm really tight up there. And then you mentioned art earlier, uh, which you did a full episode on that. Yeah, and and just just touch on that very quickly, and I and I have one more question to follow up on a sciatica what is, uh, what is art again?
Speaker 1:ART. It stands for, yeah, art, uh stands for active release technique. So again, so it's not chiropractic, but it's a type, but it goes. It's a perfect partner and it's a type of very it's. It really is the gold standard of soft tissue tech treatments and it's very specific and there's a protocol for every single muscle, tendon and ligament and even major nerve in the body and the idea is to shorten up that tissue so that I can take a contact right along that fiber that's tight, and then have you actively that's the active part actively move that muscle and move those joints in the way where that muscle is designed to move, while I'm helping it with that pressure so that it can not only break up the local tissue you know the local problems, that's keeping it but also holding it at the end so the brain could say oh, yeah, that's how that moves.
Speaker 1:I forgot. I've been in contracted, held tight position for this whole time and I've forgotten where the end ranges are. It's good stuff, it's good stuff, I love it. I love it and um, you know, I, I, I was a massage therapist before becoming a chiropractor and um, and I came out of chiropractic school I started teaching the cadaver lab, taught there for five years. So when I found ART where the cadaver lab, taught there for five years.
Speaker 3:So when I found art, where you got to really know the anatomy and have a good sense of touch, you know it's it's I found my home. I love art. It's great for listeners. I I encourage you to go back, take a look at the episodes. Number two did a deep dive, uh yeah, so you'll learn all about it and be able to take advantage of that. So let's talk about long-term management. All right, so we've gotten out of the woods with sciatica. You know what? What is that? Ongoing chiropractic care and and long-term management. How does that work with?
Speaker 1:sure, sure, it's the same thing. Okay, now you had a cavity, now you, you got filled. All right, now what's your long-term program?
Speaker 2:Keep it healthy, right Brush and floss, you know, sometimes the answers are simple but difficult to do or challenging Right.
Speaker 1:And so it's regularly keeping those joints moving. That's the way that they're designed. They have to keep moving in order for them, for that soft tissue around those bones, to stay healthy. Same thing why we brush and floss. So the long-term care is to get your spine checked on a regular basis, no longer than four weeks, and keep yourself exercised and keep yourself stretched and keep your environment in such a way where it decreases the stress, so that you're not sitting for prolonged periods of time. You're sitting situation. When you sit, you just take a deep breath and go ah, that feels good. That's got to be top priority. We don't have that as some. We don't have that as another subject for another podcast Priority of self-care.
Speaker 1:Maybe that'll be our next one.
Speaker 3:I love that subject right, good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so having ourselves, having our self-care, having our state, our state of being, our quality of life of being of highest priority, because we all kind of have a sense of what we need to know and what we need to do. But in order for that to happen, we need to say, like you know what, that's top priority. I'm going to make sure my ergonomic place is set wherever I'm working and wherever I'm sitting, whatever I'm doing. I'm going to make sure it's set up for me now and into the future.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome. So any final thoughts. You know what your listeners know concerning chiropractic care. For a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that this is something you know. I've been a chiropractor for 22 years. This has been something that I've been taking care of for so long. And somebody I see an intake form Somebody says they have sciatica. My first thought is like I can help. I sure hope I can help this person, but I certainly feel as if I have all the tools and the familiarity with this issue to really give them a good start and to give them a good you know, give them good guidance, give them good hope that that this is something that I can, that I can help them with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Appreciate you going through all that.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a lot to it and there's a lot to it. Yeah and hey, thanks for asking me good questions, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:And the best part is for those who are in the Oakland area. They can actually see you in person and get help from the master, from Dr Matt, and I know our viewers can see your contact information on the screen, but you want to share the best way to get in touch yeah, for the listeners, sure it's village chiropractic and wellness center, again located in oakland.
Speaker 1:We're in a very cute little section of oakland called montclair village, up in the oakland hills. Uh and uh, the website is the name village chiroiropracticoaklandcom and the phone number is easy it's 510-281-1708. Love it, love it.
Speaker 3:Well, dr Matt, I know you've got patients lined up ready. You know they need you, so I'm not going to be selfish today. I'm going to release you to go uh, to go help your patients. Thanks, charlie. Appreciate it Until the next episode, and then we'll we'll lean on you again big time. That's great.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with Dr Matt Green. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit our website at villagechiropracticoaklandcom or call us at 510-281-1708. Stay well and we'll see you next time.