Pinched Nerves
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What Is a Pinched Nerve?
Simply put, a pinched nerve is one that has become irritated or compressed. A pinched nerve may obstruct the brain and body’s ability to communicate with each other regarding sensation and movement. This can result in impaired, missing, or incomplete sensations, including the altered perception of pain and phantom limb syndrome, a phenomenon where an amputee continues to feel sensation from a limb that is no longer there. Additionally, it can make balancing, walking, and moving the limbs difficult.
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How Does a Pinched Nerve Feel?
Common Causes of Pinched Nerves
Pinched nerves can have various causes since they are located throughout the body. Issues such as traumas, diseases, and “wear-and-tear” injuries can lead to pinched nerves. Our pinched nerve chiropractor at Life Source Chiropractic frequently encounters the following causes:
- Sports and car accident trauma
- Rheumatoid and osteoarthritis
- Misalignment or subluxation of the spine
- Bulging discs
- Poor ergonomics at work
Symptoms of Pinched Nerves
Pinched nerves can result in symptoms that alter sensation and movement because the nerves carry sensory and motor impulses. The sensation of “pins and needles” tingling, burning, or an electrical shock-type feeling are a few of the most common sensory complaints our patients report to our chiropractor for pinched nerves. Because the nerves convey information, they spread these painful messages throughout the nerve pathway, which sometimes results in shooting pain in body parts as far away as the fingers and toes.
Although our patients’ lives are affected by nerve-related sensory problems, mobility issues resulting from nerve disorders hinder their day-to-day activities. Pinched nerves not only cause weakness, they cause unbalanced weakness that can result in harmful movement compensations. Patients who have this kind of weakness are also more likely to suffer an injury since their brain’s perception of a body that is equally strong on both sides doesn’t correspond to reality. This discrepancy between perception and reality causes movement to demand more effort than what is normally required by the body.
How Chiropractic Works To Alleviate Pinched Nerves
Pinched nerve chiropractic treatment takes into consideration every patient’s present physical state, health objectives, and preferences. Our chiropractor for pinched nerves firmly believes that therapy is most effective when a patient fully and voluntarily participates. Every patient that visits Life Source Chiropractic undergoes a thorough evaluation that includes in-depth health interviews to identify behavioral patterns, lifestyle issues, and potential resolutions focused on wellness.
We perform a chiropractic for pinched nerve evaluation once a patient has been interviewed. In addition to observing our patients as they stoop, bend, walk, and perform various other actions so we can better evaluate how their neurological system is functioning, we also test other physical abilities such as their strength and reflexes. We may also obtain imaging studies to help us determine where the nerves may be pinched or compressed.
Pinched Nerve Treatment
Once our assessment is complete, we put together pinched nerve treatment options that will help our patients achieve the results they are looking for. These gentle, and minimally invasive interventions are designed to correspond with our patients’ habits, desires, and personal styles so they can be simply incorporated into their daily lives.
Chiropractic Adjustments
Symptoms from pinched nerves are frequently worse at night. Because of this, many of our patients suffered from a lack of sleep before they searched for a “pinched nerve chiropractor near me” and discovered Life Source Chiropractic. We want to help our patients feel better as quickly as possible because we’ve heard how an irritated nerve can make life miserable with every movement throughout the day.
We use chiropractic adjustments to locate and correct spinal subluxations, or misalignments, that are causing compression of the nerves. This not only relieves the symptoms of a pinched nerve, it also corrects the underlying problem of pinched nerve pain, which is commonly caused by a misaligned joint, bone, or muscle.
Posture Correction using Spinal Molding Blocks
Poor posture is a huge contributor to pinched nerves. Unnecessary tension is placed on vulnerable areas of the neck and back when sitting unnaturally or hunched over a desk for several hours at a time. Many people who work in an office setting suffer from pinched nerves as a result of poor posture.
Spinal molding blocks are used to gently restore the spine’s natural curvature and can help alleviate pain caused by pinched nerves. Before the patient is placed in a healthy spinal position on these foam blocks, the discs must first go through a brief set of warm-up exercises. The patient then lays on the spinal molding blocks for a period of 20 minutes, allowing the discs to cool down and maintain this healthy posture.
Therapeutic Movement
Gentle activity can relieve discomfort and help restore lost function to impaired nerves. An important component of pinched nerve chiropractic treatment is guided exercise. We develop a therapeutic exercise program once our chiropractor has evaluated a patient’s mobility and established some long-term treatment goals. Guided exercise is initially carried out at Life Source Chiropractic under the watchful eye of our expert staff. This guarantees that all exercises are done properly and that any necessary plan revisions can be made without delay.
Strategic Self-Care
As soon as our patients can complete their therapeutic exercise programs safely and independently in our office, we provide them with the essential information necessary to complete their exercises at home. From what we’ve experienced, chiropractic for pinched nerve patients are eager to learn and perform a variety of at-home, self-care techniques. This may include therapeutic hot and cold treatments as well as plenty of rest. A well-balanced diet and focused supplementation are other areas of self-care that can also help our patients.