♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, this video is about
can my herniated bulging disc or sciatica heal?
This is a video that is part
of a entire series of videos on sciatica.
If you wanna see that series, go to http://bobandbrad.com
and look for video programs or series.
- Okay.
- All right, the short answer to this is yes.
Most bulges shrink with time.
You know, the symptoms also associated with it,
pain, numbness, tingling, possibly burning.
- Down the leg.
That also tends to get better in most people over time.
- Sure.
- So this is good news.
The body has an enormous...
What was I trying to say there?
Enormous capacity to heal if you allow it.
And there's a few ways that can happen.
Right now, Brad, do you want to just show
where the bulging or the herniated disc is at?
- Sure, sure.
All right, so we've got the spine here.
Here's your pelvis, the lumbar spine.
The vast majority of bulging discs are in the low back.
Actually they're down between these two vertebrae.
But actually because the pelvis gets in the way,
we're going to show this one, and that's where the model is.
That's what it may look like.
The disc is here, it's bulging out, and you can
see it's bulging out right by the spinal nerve.
This nerve actually goes out and exits, goes down
through the pelvis and into the leg.
That's why when you have a bulging disc
or herniated disc, it puts pressure on the spinal nerve.
And they symptoms, the pain, the numbness,
the tingling, this is responsible for that.
But it goes down the leg, and you can feel it
all the way down into your big toe depending on
which nerve is being irritated.
That can be one irritation.
Are we going to talk about the stenosis?
- [Bob] Yeah, why don't you show the other
stenosis right away too.
That's a good time right now.
- Okay. Now, you could have healthy discs
and still get sciatica without that bulge being there,
and it's called from stenosis.
That's where the hole, or it's called the foramen.
The spinal nerve exits through this hole and that can
get bone spurs. It could be some scar tissue in there.
Could be a number of reasons, but this foramen becomes
smaller. That's what stenosis means.
A gap or a whole becoming smaller.
Just because of this hole becoming smaller, that can
pinch, particularly with certain movements, sometimes
it gets worse than with others.
That's a second reason.
- And that possibly can get better also.
- Right, right.
- That can get better by two means.
One, we're going to show you how to do nerve flossing
is some of the first future videos.
- Sure.
- And two, you can actually, if you just reduce
what we call pain makers.
- Sure.
- The things that are causing pain in your life.
- Right.
- Sometimes the nerves become less sensitive.
- Right, right.
Are we going to talk about piriformis possibility?
- No, we won't talk about that.
- All right.
That's a third potential.
- Yeah.
- We're going to focus on...
This is a primary issue.
- Right.
So disc material, that's what we're going to
talk about here.
Disc material, what three things can happen to it.
One, it can get reabsorbed.
- Sure.
- Which is amazing how the body again works.
If you let it heal.
Two, this material can dehydrate.
The water comes out of it.
It becomes dried up and it just no longer
presses on the nerve (mumbles).
- Right, the body reabsorbs this.
- Right.
- This doesn't happen in a day or two.
This is over--
- All this still happens over time.
- Right.
- It happened to by brother-in-law.
- Sure.
- With Charlie was the first time I ever saw that.
And number three, in response to the inflammation,
the body creates little macrophages, which are
little like Pac-Man cells.
- Yeah, they're chewing away and doing--
- I hope we're not dating ourselves with that.
- Doing their job.
- Sam, do you know that?
Oh, okay. Sam's a young guy.
- How old are you, Sam?
- 26
- 26, and he knows, so we're in good shape.
- But that eats disc material, believe it or not.
- Sure.
- So, I mean, how cool is that?
- The body's amazing.
- If you can tough it out during this period of time
when you're having a lot of pain, hopefully over time
it's going to get better and better days are ahead.
- But one of the reasons it's going to get better
is because you're going to change your posture.
There's specific exercises and it's--
- Oh, I did forget to mention that, Brad.
- It can be different for different people
depending on where the bulge is.
It may change your exercise, and they're called
directional exercises.
As therapists, we've witnessed this many times
with our patients.
And myself, I've got rid of my sciatica through
specific directional exercises, as well as
the inversion table.
Which we're not going to get into that right now.
- So yeah--
- They're not just going to get better...
Well, they can get better without specific exercises.
But once you figure out what you need to do,
that could really increase the time--
- It could move things along.
- Yeah, make it less painful.
- All right, thanks for watching.
(electronic chime)