Do I Have A Pinched Nerve? | How To Treat A Pinched Nerve Naturally

One of the most common comments new patients make in consultation is, “my doctor said I have a pinched nerve”. While pain can emanate from many different mechanisms in the body, most of the pain labeled as a pinched nerve isn’t accurate.

A better word for a pinched nerve is an entrapped nerve. Entrapment can happen from muscle tension, disc bulge, and spinal subluxation. In this article we discuss several mechanisms that produce pain that feels like a ” pinched” nerve.

Where do people commonly feel a “pinched nerve”?                 

The Cervical spine, arm and the upper back is the most common area to feel the sensation of a ” pinched nerve”. Patient often report sharp shooting pain starting in the neck radiating down into the upper back usually on one side or the other. This sensation is usually associated with spasticity of the levator scapula and lower trapezius muscle. These two muscles can become chronically tight due misalignments of the joints in the Cervical spine.

Pinched nerve sensations In the Arm

Many people have radiating pain down the arm. For others it can be a deep ache in the upper arm extending to the lower arm.

Neck injury in the past can cause postural faults due to imbalances in postural muscle tone. This can underlie the pinched nerve sensations people feel. The great majority of arm and neck pain is tight muscles caused by prior neck injury. A smaller percentage is due to a neck disc bulge that is impacting the spinal cord or nerves that supply the arm. In both mechanisms an upper Cervical specialist can oftentimes help.

Pinched nerves in the legs

The most common syndrome associated with leg pain is sciatica. Piriformis syndrome is a condition that describes entrapment of the sciatic nerve due to the piriformis muscle being tight. The other most common cause of sciatica is low back disc bulge impacting the spinal cord or spinal nerve. Both conditions can cause the ” pinched nerve” sensation in the buttock, and upper or lower leg.

How can Blair Upper Cervical chiropractors help ” Pinched Nerves”?

Neck injuries are ubiquitous today. Car accidents, sports injuries, and chronic high stress levels are the result of our high paced, high stress society. Because pinched nerve pain most often seems to have no obvious underlying cause most people think ” they just happen”. The great majority of ” pinched nerve ” pain has its roots in nervous system irritation and interference at the skull- atlas junction. Below we will explain how the upper Cervical spine globally controls the tone of the bodies postural muscles and how it can result in muscle- nerve entrapment and the development of disc injury.

Balanced, relaxed muscles  show a healthy spine while imbalanced tight muscles are the result of misaligned joints of the spine. It is well documented that spinal muscle tone is a function of how well the joints in the upper cervical spine move.  Injuries to the joints in the upper cervical spine from whiplash and other trauma play an important role in postural muscle tone. When someone sustains neck injury, the ligaments and soft tissues surrounding the neck joints become injured. spinal joints can misalign, muscles become tight and global imbalances through the spine develop. Forward head posture, loss of cervical curve oftentimes develops. Long-term these postural imbalances set the stage for disc injury and chronic imbalances in muscle tone which can later develop as entrapment of nerves and disc Injury.

To reverse the underlying cause of these conditions a Blair upper cervical chiropractor is specially trained to find joint misalignments and associated nerve irritation in the upper neck. This is done through digital or cone beam cat scan (CBCT) imaging. Precise measurements are taken from the imaging and is used to gently and precisely restore joint motion which restores normal nerve function. Over time posture balances, imbalanced muscle become balanced and relaxed and pinched nerve type symptoms improved or are eliminated.

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