Good News Tucson - A Family Values Publication

Pair-A-Docs On Health with Dr.'s Scott & Melody DeMent

Ever Have a “Hitch” in Your “Giddy Up”?
It May Be Sciatica!

If you haven’t been unlucky enough to have suffered from sciatica, you probably know at least one person who has. The term itself has been around at least since 1398 A.D. “Sciatica” is not really a diagnosis but a set of symptoms that can be debilitating. The sciatic nerve itself is the longest and largest nerve in the body. It is made up of five roots that leave the low back and join in the pelvis to become the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve then travels to muscles and joints in the thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet and toes.

If the sciatic nerve or the nerve roots become inflamed, sciatica can result and an individual can experience severe pain in the back of the thigh, calf, ankle and foot. The pain can also occur in the low back and the hips. The pain may be sharp (shock-like) or throbbing and can create pins-and-needles, tingling and tenderness. Usually the symptoms occur only on one side of the body. Postural changes, like lying down or changing positions, may or may not affect the pain. Sitting and standing may be extremely difficult. Symptoms will often vary from patient to patient.

Sciatica can be caused by a number of conditions:

Spinal misalignment (subluxation)
Spinal disc herniation/ disc degeneration
Lumbar stenosis (narrowing of the nerve openings)
Lumbar spondylolisthesis (a vertebra slips forward and causes compression of the nerve roots)
Muscular compression of the sciatic nerve/ Piriformis syndrome (this is not always considered true sciatica but can create similar symptoms)
Tumors (although rare, can cause sciatica)

These conditions can be brought on by excessive sitting, lack of physical exercise, trauma and pregnancy.

The traditional medical approach is to treat the symptoms with painkillers, muscle relaxers, and physical therapy. If drugs and physical therapy have no effect, then Orthopedic surgery may also be recommended depending upon the condition (the cause) of the sciatica. But you need to bear in mind that the “New England Journal of Medicine” reported that over 50% of all spinal surgeries are unnecessary.

An alternative approach to sciatica is chiropractic care. For over one hundred years, doctors of chiropractic have given spinal adjustments to millions of patients, many of them sciatica sufferers. Chiropractors check the spine for spinal misalignments (vertebral subluxations) and if they are present, a chiropractor will work to remove them through chiropractic adjustments. By doing this, chiropractors relieve stress on the spinal joints, nerves, discs and muscles. These are often the main causes of sciatica and hence, a patient will often get relief through chiropractic care.

A relatively new treatment, called spinal decompression, is also demonstrating good results in relieving sciatica since decompression can help disc herniations, disc degeneration and lumbar stenosis. This treatment is now being performed by chiropractors and medical doctors. This technique works well in that it can create a negative pressure within a disc and in turn, draws a herniated portion back into the disc and can help strengthen weak ligaments to help prevent future herniations. We have had excellent results with this technique ourselves.

Conservative treatment is not recommended for patients who are experiencing loss of muscle control and bowel & bladder incontinence. Patients who experience these symptoms should seek medical care immediately.

Dr. Scott DeMent and Dr. Melody DeMent are Doctors of Chiropractic who are married, own DeMent Family Chiropractic. Spinal health and wellness care for the individual and families are their emphasis in their practice. The Doctors can be reached at 298-4999.