Spasms can also occur in the muscles that the nerve supplies, if they are severe enough weakness and paralysis can occur. The most common sites where nerve damage occurs in the practice are the sciatic nerve (back of leg), femoral nerve (front of leg), and the arm from the lower neck nerves.

How can it be specific to me?

Nerve pain can have different severities on an individual, it can range from mild to an annoying ache, to totally intolerable or even debilitating depending on the cause and severity. There are two main reasons for people to experience nerve pain. The first is indirect irritation from inflammation of surrounding structures like joints, muscles, ligaments and discs. Symptoms range from mild to severe pain and tightness, which can often result in pins and needles, numbness, sensitivity, burning and positional awareness distortion. Direct pressure on the nerve causes lack of sensation and if severe enough it can result in paralysis. Direct pressure is less common and this is mostly caused by a disc injury where there is direct pressure is on the spinal nerve. Spinal stenosis, altered nerve signalling due to a blockage from degeneration and spinal tumours are much less common, but need to be ruled out as a cause of direct pressure.

WHAT CAUSES NERVE PAIN?

• Disc Injury – Disc injuries occur due to compression and rotational movements of the disc under a specific load. This happens when someone lifts and twists, particularly activities done away from the body. This can also occur over time with repetitive movements, during lifting when something is too heavy or an unexpected load is present and commonly when a very minor event occurs. An example of this is simply bending down to pick up a light object off the ground, and triggering the disc injury. This is also most notable in the morning, as the disc has more fluid and is much tighter so more vulnerable to injury. Another common factor for disc injuries is those individuals who have an occupation which requires prolonged sitting with bad posture.

• Stenosis/Spinal Tumour – As explained above. X-rays requested and a referral to a specialised health care professional is highly recommended.

• Virus – Shingles is a virus which directly affects the nerve root, it is characterised with a burning pain and rash along the path of the nerve.

• Organ referred pain – Referred from a specific body organ which needs to be identified and referred for medical care.

Nerve Pain Treatment- How we can help?

Your chiropractor will perform a full spinal examination in order to assess for spinal joint dysfunction and particular nerve root irritations. Chiropractic treatment aim is to take biomechanical stress off the surrounding spinal structures and reduce nerve pain. Treatment success is dependent on many factors such as, how long the problem has been there, the amount of wear and tear (degeneration) present, whether there is referred pain, posture, occupational stress and social stresses all have an impact on the outcome.

To discuss your Nerve pain please feel free to use our Contact Form or Call us on 0736660633. To make an appointment now use the Online Booking tab below.

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