In treating sciatic pain sufferers, we have seen nearly all of our patients respond very well to care with the pain and disfunction of sciatica reducing significantly or completely disappearing when they are properly aligned.
Sciatic pain is most commonly caused by stress on the low back causing a disc to bulge and irritate the nerves. This causes the classic shooting pains down the back of one or both legs and can lead to long term nerve damage if left unchecked.
Poor posture and increased muscle tension in the low back is very often a culprit in sciatica and an upper cervical correction can restore good posture and allow tense muscles to relax.
“I drive 12 hours each way to come and see Dr. Kuhn because it is the only treatment I have found that has helped alleviate the chronic low back pain and sciatica that used to keep me home from work for days at a time when it flared up. I noticed immediate improvements following my first treatment and have gotten even better with time. Now I only come in 2-3 times per year for a re-alignment when my back starts to act up again.” – Leo
“I was already booked in for back surgery to take care of my sciatic pain which was causing numbness and weakness into my leg when I a friend told me to try NUCCA at Providence Chiropractic. Within the first couple of weeks, my back pain and sciatic issues were gone and the neurologists determined I was no longer a candidate for the surgery. Upper cervical care kept me off the operating table!” – Tony
About the condition
Sciatica is a condition in which a herniated or ruptured disc presses on the sciatic nerve, the large nerve that extends down from the spinal column to its exit point in the pelvis and carries nerve fibers to the leg. This compression causes shock-like or burning low back pain combined with pain through the buttocks and down one leg to below the knee, occasionally reaching the foot.
In the most serious of cases, the pain of sciatica can develop into nerve damage resulting in loss of feeling in the affected limb and even loss of muscle strenght and control.
Sciatica is also occasionally called piriformis syndrome. This is because the sciatic nerve passes through the piriformis muscle as it exits the pelvis. One theory (which has more mounting evidence against it as an actual cause) is that the piriformis muscle spasms and entraps the sciatic nerve, causing the classic shooting pain.
Theory of how upper cervical treatment helps
Sciatica is really just an extension of Low Back Pain. The stress and added pressure from uneven postural strain drastically increases the pressure on the discs of the low back, leading to bulges and herniations. This uneven posture can be directly tied back to misalignment of the upper cervical spine.
When the head is tilted off the horizon and not properly balanced over the neck, then the rest of the body is left to adapt to the position it is in and this leads to unbalanced posture. A gentle and precise correction of the upper cervical misalignment is often all it takes to remove the added stress from the low back and in many cases allows the body to relieve the pressure on the sciatic nerve and allow the injured disc to heal.