Acute Low Back Pain with Sciatica Treatment

Disc herniations and bulges can heal without surgery. Expert neurosurgeons will tell you the same thing. Yet why most elect for surgery is they never find conservative treatment that solves the problem.

We must identify the underlying reasons WHY the disc herniated or became sensitive. Often these reasons deal with improper movement and postures that overload the disc routinely. We get too focused on the event - the moment the back locked up and pain hit like a ton of bricks - and not enough focus is brought to the process that led to the injury.

With this patient, we had to focus on teaching sparing the spine while winding down sciatica symptoms in the right leg. Focus was also placed on flexion intolerance, reduced lumbar spine extension, and poor transverse plane stability of the lumbar spine and pelvis.

The combination of these interventions and pain education resulted in significant reduction of low back pain and near complete elimination of sciatica in TWO treatments.

The important thing to remember here is that while the total number of in office treatments was low, this patient was provided with the proper home instruction that enable him to make a dramatic impact on his pain and symptoms. Patients need to understand what is driving their pain. They need to understand how their postures, movements, and habits are either helping them or sabotaging their healing process. From here they can make the appropriate modifications and learn to problem solve their pain.

Sometimes you don't have to wait weeks or months for pain relief. Making lasting changes in the body is a different story. This can take a longer period of time with the correct inputs through repetition. And this is exactly why education and home care instruction is vital to patient success. Help them understand their pain and the recovery process.