Sciatica can stem from various things, including nerve pinching because of spinal stenosis, slipped discs, and even neck bone misalignments. This neurological condition affects the sciatic nerve, a nerve tissue bundle that originates in your lumbar spine and extends to the tips of your toes. People who have this condition experience pain, discomfort, numbness, tingling sensation, or muscle weakness along the sciatic nerve's pathway. Most patients tap into remedies like pain relievers or sciatica pain relief exercises to cope with their symptoms. Others also explore new relief options such as hydrotherapy.
Have you come across this sciatica remedy before? If not, we encourage you to read on as we look into this form of therapy and another holistic and natural option you should consider.
Sciatica researchers and physical therapists highly recommend hydrotherapy to patients who want to manage their symptoms better. Sometimes called a "water cure," this method encompasses alternative medicine, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, which utilizes water for pain relief and treatment.
Its approach hinges on the benefits of exercise, such as endorphin release and the ample structural support provided by water when performing specific movements. Contrary to popular belief, hydrotherapy is more than swimming. Instead, this method also involves creating a controlled and safe environment for a patient.
For example, therapists adjust the water's temperature to a slightly warmer setting than a typical swimming pool. The routine exercises involving slow controlled movements also require close monitoring and guidance from a physical therapist. On top of that, hydrotherapy pools are shallow and at most until your chest level only, so it doesn't require swimming skills.
There are various sciatica pain relief exercises that you can do in an aquatic environment. Besides helping you relieve your radiating back pain, these exercises also come in handy in providing benefits such as:
There are at least four popular water-based sciatica pain relief exercises you can try. We listed them below to help you see which one might work best for you:
Swimming proves to be an effective way to soothe aches and pains while keeping your body fit. The aquatic environment minimizes the strain and mechanical pressure on your body, making this low-impact exercise perfect for anyone with sciatica pain. In addition, when you swim, you engage various muscles, including the supporting muscles in the back. This helps tone and strengthen your muscles without pushing your body too much.
This type of hydrotherapy exercise helps improve your sciatica by improving balance and stability through the gentle resistance of walking through water without putting too much pressure on your joints.
Knee lifts in the water make it easier to engage your lower back and hamstrings to move to improve painful symptoms of sciatica.
This type of class is similar to a regular aerobics class or gym workout but the done in the pool to support your body. It involves doing low-impact exercises that help build and strengthen muscle fibers crucial for maintaining proper posture. Besides providing you with incredible health benefits, aqua aerobics also offers a fun way to engage with your other fellow aqua aerobics enthusiasts.
Apart from hydrotherapy, upper cervical chiropractic is a natural regimen that works well in managing and resolving sciatica and its symptoms. This specific chiropractic technique uses gentle strokes to correct misalignments in the upper neck and help restore the neutral curvature of the rest of the spine.
Upper cervical doctors use advanced imaging techniques such as x-ray and infra-red scans to provide precise adjustments. Additionally, patients need to undergo additional assessments such as a quick physical examination of the head, neck, shoulders, hips, and legs to gauge the effects of the postural imbalance. If you have sciatica pain, we suggest seeing an upper cervical chiropractor so you can begin your recovery journey and prevent further nerve damage.
Still not sure how a neck bone adjustment can help correct a problem in the lumbar spine? The average adult has 33 interconnected vertebral bones. They work hand in hand to protect the spinal cord and keep the head upright.
Now, suppose one or two of the bones shift away from the body's central axis. What do you think would happen? Naturally, the rest of the spine has to compensate because of the head (about 10 to 12 pounds). This can lead to nerve compression in multiple sections of the spinal column, including the lumbar spine.
By removing or correcting the postural problem, you can negate these effects and help ease the pressure off the affected tissues, such as the sciatic nerve.
If you have poor posture, a history of car accidents, sports injuries, and physical trauma, you might have displaced upper spinal bones. When left unaddressed, these misalignments can lead to the problems we enumerated above and even increase your risks for conditions that might aggravate your sciatica pain, such as:
Don't let sciatica pain take over life! Get in touch with an upper cervical chiropractor so you can receive adjustments and amplify the benefits you get from your sciatica pain relief exercises. Call the nearest upper cervical doctor in your city today!
to schedule a consultation today.
The content and materials provided in this web site are for informational and educational purposes only and are not intended to supplement or comprise a medical diagnosis or other professional opinion, or to be used in lieu of a consultation with a physician or competent health care professional for medical diagnosis and/or treatment. All content and materials including research papers, case studies and testimonials summarizing patients' responses to care are intended for educational purposes only and do not imply a guarantee of benefit. Individual results may vary, depending upon several factors including age of the patient, severity of the condition, severity of the spinal injury, and duration of time the condition has been present.
