♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapists.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob
- Today we're gonna answer the question,
can a pinched nerve in my neck,
or your neck, heal?
and we're gonna get right to that, Brad
right now, let's start.
Bob It's a simple answer for me.
And I think for you as well,
I'd rather work with the pinched nerve in the neck,
as a therapist, than in the low back,
because have better results.
- Sure. So the short answer is yes.
- Yeah, well I guess so, yup.
- Yeah, if a pinched nerve is due to a bulging disc,
so, you know if the pinched nerve,
something's pinching it.
- Right.
- It could be bone, it could be disc,
it could be ligament even, or muscle.
- Sure.
But let's first talk about the disc.
If it's a disc putting pressure.
The discs are between the bones of your neck,
the vertebrae. - Right.
- and they're putting pressure on the nerve.
The thing is with discs, especially in the neck,
they tend to shrink over time.
- Mm-hm.
- They can dehydrate
and they can get reabsorbed even by the body.
The body's really amazing.
Really what it can do.
- Right, well just from the therapeutic exercises
so the mechanical forces make it better,
versus make it go out more.
And it could be just a simple posture thing
that people aren't aware of.
- Yeah, so what Brad's hinting about,
is that we will show you exercises to try,
that'll help push that material back in.
- Right.
- So in addition to the body trying to help you out,
we're gonna help you out.
- Right.
- So the other thing,
and I just read about this in the last year, Brad.
So in response to inflammation
the body creates little Pacman-type cells.
- That it's not a technical term.
- No. (laughing)
- But you can think of it that way.
- Yeah and it actually eats the disc material.
- Sure.
- Isn't that crazy?
- Well, I'm convinced that that's what has happened
with my lower back.
I used to have pain going back down my leg.
And it just took time.
And, you know, again, exercises along with it, consistently.
But boy.
- And also what we're wanna to talk about is
that you created an environment of healing.
- Right.
- You weren't putting it under stress.
I'll say it's proper stress.
- Right.
We're not aggravating it everyday by poor posture
or silly body mechanics or things of that nature.
- 'Cause let's say you have neck pain
or arm pain due to arthritis in the neck.
You know, the little holes that the nerves come out.
- The foramen.
- Yep. They actually can shrink,
as they grow bony overgrowths.
- Yep.
- And so in those cases,
where there's pressure on the nerve from bone.
Like foraminal stenosis, we can't heal it,
but we can certainly improve it.
- Sure.
- And most people do not require a surgery
even though they have arthritic changes.
- Sure. Mm-hm.
- So the first thing we're gonna recommend
is you decrease the pain makers, in your life.
So a pain maker is anything that,
like a position or activity that causes pain.
- Right.
- And if you can decrease those pain makers,
a lot of times
you can decrease the sensitivity of the nerves.
- Mm-hm.
- And it's just a positive,
rolling down the hill of a ball, a snowball.
- Right. Right.
If it just avalanches,
to the point where less and less pain.
You see you can have control.
- Right.
- The other thing is, we're gonna recommend
and we're gonna have a video,
on how to decrease the pain makers in your life.
That's coming up.
We also have one on nerve flossing,
and this is a technique you can use
to help decrease the stress on the nerve too.
- Yep. If you free it up.
- You free it up.
- And get it moving.
And that's a lot of this,
is just getting motion back in that area,
but in an appropriate way.
So you don't irritate it,
you break it loose.
And that's what therapy is all about.
- Yeah. So you wanna look for this video
and this podcast.
It's a part of a series of videos
on how to treat a pinched nerve or neck pain and arm pain.
- Sure.
- So go to Bobandbrad.com.
Go to the program section and look for neck pain.
And you'll find a whole series of videos on this.
You'll find, upcoming actually is,
how to perform nerve flossing,
which can help your neck and arm pain.
- Sure.
- You'll find one up, on pain makers.
- So just scroll through the videos.
Look at the titles.
Pick out the ones that pertain to you.
You don't have to watch all of them.
Look at them.
And actually we have a PDF printout for each video
for review.
Shows you the exercises on there
and you don't need to put your email or anything.
It's all free.
It's a wonderful way to self-treat
and help yourself get through the system.
- Yeah we should be charging thousands for this.
- Well, maybe we will, Bob.
We might change our minds.
- No, we're not gonna change our minds.
It's always gonna be free.
So check it out and get rid of that pain today.
- You bet.
- All right.
Thanks for watching.
- Good luck.
(upbeat music)