♪ 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 together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Brad--
- Today you wanted to talk about
how long does it take sciatica to heal.
I guess basically by sciatica
we're saying a herniated disc.
- Typically at pain down the leg,
oftentimes from that herniated disc,
we get this question all
the time on our comments,
people are asking, how long does
it take for this to heal?
I got football coming up in a month,
am I gonna make it?
- I think the short answer, Brad,
is we cannot tell you how long it's gonna take
but the longer answer would be
that first off, what we see quite often is
that the pain is gonna go away within, you know,
three to four weeks or maybe even sooner.
- Right. - I mean, we might be able
to give you immediate relief
if you do some of the right things,
but you're gonna be
at risk probably for a long time.
- People who have serious back pain
even if it's not serious, the studies show
that your chance of having to get in the future
are higher than people that have that.
- Yes exactly.
- Because a lot of times you're doing
the same things that caused it in
the first place and that's why I worked towards
the end of this video, we're talk about some
of those things, what you wanna do
to give yourself a better chance of healing
and a better chance of it not happening again.
- Right, it's more than just things you do
for a week it's habits, how you sit,
how you lift, how you perform your life,
it's like brushing your teeth.
If you only brush your teeth once a week,
you're gonna have teeth problems.
- You're gonna have problems.
- You have to be consistent, you know, on a regular basis.
- I think just by the very nature
of what's healing, Brad, some of those tissues
that we're talking about, that you know,
when they talk about other parts of the body
and similar tissues, it can take up to a year
before the healing is really done.
- Right, because the disc does not have
a good blood supply, it's not readily available,
it takes much longer for that disc,
that annular area of the disc to heal
because of that blood supply issue.
- You know, we wanna make sure that it's very clear though,
that doesn't mean you're gonna have pain for year
by any means whatsoever.
We can get the pains sometimes
to go away within a week.
- Sure.
- But you're gonna have to be careful
from that, that point on
- Exactly. We're gonna have three main categories
we're gonna go through to help you maintain
that pain free back.
- Before we do that, Brad.
- Yes.
If, if you haven't already,
if you new to our channel please
take a minute to subscribe.
We gotta subscribe button right over.
Gotta show Brad.
- Yep.
- Right on the screen, we upload a video every
day on how stay healthy, fit, pain free.
And this is one of those examples.
- Right. We go from pretty much head to toe.
- Right. Okay.
- Moving on.
- Okay. So I wanna talk about a study
that I looked over to find out
the answer to this questions
on how long it takes for it to heal.
And I came across the study and we do a lot
of videos that based on the McKenzie system,
which talk about centralizing. In other words,
that pain that's going down the leg.
If you can eliminate that and centralize it.
In other words, get rid of the pain
in the leg and have the pain in your back.
That's the first big step in treatment.
- Yeah. Normal pain pattern with, you know
a herniated disc or sciatica is that, you know
you first start feeling in your butt.
Then it goes down the back
of the leg right off and down the calf.
It can go in the front too. - Sure.
- And, and down into the foot.
So what Brad is saying, the more
that we can get the pain to come up.
- Right.
You know, go out of the foot first,
then outta the calf.
- Right.
then out of the thigh, then,
you know into the buttock
then out of the buttock, into the back
the better you are off.
- So if you're fit into that category
you can get rid of the leg pain first.
And this study 68%
of those people progressed
very well to the way out.
- And they were called the centralizers
- Right.
- Cause the, the pains centralized in their back.
- Right.
- That's what, that's a good sign.
- Right. And the people who had problems
or couldn't centralize or didn't, they are at 52%.
So they're still a little over half.
- Yeah. You're still there's hope
if you don't centralize.
- Right. It's just better.
- Right. I, I can tell you anecdotally
for the people that I see,
the ones that centralized
they tend to do very well, a lot quicker.
- Exactly.
- And the ones that don't,
it, it takes a long time.
- Exactly. So, and you know, we've
- Got, this is our opinion, my opinion.
- And my, I just saw yesterday.
I saw a 22 year old male injured himself at work.
And I had him doing the press
of Bob, his calf muscle
which was really tight pain in the foot.
Went 50% less in just a matter of minutes.
And I'm smiling cuz its like this guy
- This is a good sign.
- This guy's gonna get better. Pretty darn quick
- The worst sign is when
the pain goes outta your back
and goes just into your leg.
That's a, that's a terrible sign
- Right. When you get it stuck
down in the leg and the foot you can't
- And you don't have anything in
the back anymore. That's not a good sign.
- Right. You think you can connect one
of those videos up about the absolute,
best of the yeah.
- Sure. How to do a sciatica.
Yeah. I'll put that up right here.
- Right?
- Is it there?
- Yeah. It's there.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Now it's gone.
All right. So the, the thing is, and Brad, you had mentioned
the study on one of our other videos about how,
what the factors tend to cause people
to really get the sciatica return.
- Sure.
- And that, so these are the same factors that
cause it the same factors that will help you.
You know, if you do do these things wrong
it won't heal as quickly.
- Right.
- So they're all the same things.
So we should talk about those - I think.
Yeah. And I think that the first category
I wanna talk about is seated posture,
seated posture can tear up your back
and more than anything. I believe.
- If you drive a lot in fact
that's what that study showed people
that drove more than an hour.
One way.
Yeah. - Well two hours a day
- Two hours a day.
Yeah. So an hour of one direction back again
they that they put 'em
at a much higher risk for having sciatica again.
And it makes sense.
- And this is assuming
and this is people are not aware
of good seated posture.
And if, if we look at a car seat
now this is not a good model for it.
But oftentimes they allow your back to slump.
And when this part of your back rounds
the opposite direction of natural,
which is arched in this direction, we go
the opposite direction.
You got the hole in the chair
the hollow spot that puts stress on that disc.
And that's gonna
- And plus yeah, we have shock absorption here.
- Your body, yeah.
- Person is going to, and a lot
of people when they if they lean their seat back,
you know, that's what's gonna cause 'em
to slouch even more.
- Right.
- Cause they're reaching
- You want to seat upright
and then you do want to use some type of back support
- Sure. In the car lumbar roll. And whether it's in a car
I think we can mention the computer workstation.
- Yeah. Exactly.
- At the computer workstation, you
you might be slouched in the same concept you can use
We just, you know, you can just take a towel out
from your from your bathroom and tape it up.
Don't get your wife's favorite towel though.
Get the proper one.
- Right.
- And you're gonna put it back there about at
the belt line and you're gonna put that there
and it's gonna feel like very good support.
It's gonna actually make the pain go down.
When you lean up against it,
you can say, this is right.
- What's nice about the towels is
that you can vary the, you know, the size of it.
- Exactly.
- So, and a lot of times people
are in the throes of back pain
you know, when they're experiencing the sciatica
sometimes they like the bigger,
- Sure. Sure.
that's why I found.
- Yep.
- And then later on when it's more preventative
or when the pain is gone, like Brad
and I like this
- Right.
- This is what we use in the car.
- Right.
It's it's, it's a firm dense
styrofoam type material.
And yeah, this is exactly what I, I have one.
And then sometimes I use two of 'em depending
on how my back feels and I'll use that there
but a lumbar supports, matter of fact
there's a person that comment, I hope she's listening today.
She's doing yoga or no, uh meditation.
And if she's doing meditation like this
- Yeah. Look at this, look at it.
His, his back is rounded out.
This is a lot of stress on your back.
- This is a good way to make a herniated disc worse.
Yeah. Or keep it from
- Or keep it from getting better.
- Right. Exactly.
So sitting on a, on a hard floor
is another way that sitting can really slow down
create problems or, you know
- It's really good to try
to break up sitting by the way.
- Sure.
- And you know, when you're sitting
in the office during the day, I mean really try to get up.
I mean, honestly, if you have back pain,
in fact, Brad and I talked about this,
another video, I had an episode
of back pain when I was first, I was a student.
- Sure.
- And I, I didn't sit at all.
And you, you didn't either you had an episode.
- Right, right.
Yep. And I, I just, I did my work at a high table.
- Yeah. That's what I did. I went to a countertop.
I did my notes on it. - Right.
- I didn't, I didn't sit at all.
- Right.
- I'd either lay down or I'd stand up.
So that just shows you how, you know
back pain has become a sitting problem.
- Right.
- Rather than a lifting problem.
- We hate to be kicking the the dead horse.
- The dead horse.
- But this is really important.
- oh, it is.
That's probably the first thing you're gonna look at.
If you're driving in your car
you have to drive long distances, break it up.
If you can stop at that gas station, get the cup
of Joe and, and you know, walk around
the car a few times.
- Right.
I think another big one is little things
like how many times you
have someone has back problem.
They say, geez. When I brush my teeth or do the dishes,
it kills me.
And it's usually because they're bending forward
and this little bit of bend
on a irritated back can really irritate it
after a few minutes of standing like this.
- Let's just show lifting tube Brad.
- Sure.
- Yeah. Let's go into lifting mechanics.
- So I'll lift wrong first.
- Sure. Go ahead, Bob. - So a lot of people just keep
their legs straight and they bend right down.
Right. Cuz it's a, it's a very light object.
- Right.
- You know, they'll pick up a pencil or whatever
- You get things all rounded out.
It puts a lot of stress right there.
- And it doesn't matter,
if you're picking up a feather, Brad.
- Right. - I mean it because you're
you're putting a lot of stress on your back.
Even if you're not lifting anything.
- Now take this into consideration.
Bob. Another thing I wanted to think about
maybe you're in your car for three hours sitting
with poor posture and then you get out to
to pick up the pencil off the floor.
- Yeah.
- It's not bending up and picking
the pencil that did it.
It was at three hours of sitting with poor posture.
- So with good posture, a lot of times you, you know
get a good athletic base wide staggered like this
or you know, wide based and then you can bend down.
I'm keeping everything straight.
Like it's in a cast.
- Right. That's why I'm holding onto this.
Yeah. I wasn't gonna hit Bob with it. Yeah.
- You can see how I keep the straight line in my bag.
- Turn, turn.
Oh, there you go.
So they gotta, you're just using that for us.
A straight edge.
- So all you gotta do is hire someone
to follow you with a straight edge like
- Right. Exactly.
- And make sure you're lifting.
- Right. There'll there'll be people that'll do that or you.
- Oh yeah.
- There's there's lots of people looking for work.
- So a lot of times I give the,
the queue that you wanna stand
and lift, like you got a cast on.
Right. And if you broke, you know
if you bent wrong, you you'd actually break
the cast.
- Exactly.
So I think the bottom line is how long
does it take to heal?
There is no specific time.
- I think healing could be going on a year later yet.
- Right.
- So I I think get rid
of the pain and then be careful, you know
- Change your body to mechanics.
- Yeah.
- And eliminate the stress on that disc
by doing the things we just talked
about doing them properly
and consistently it's not easy.
- Thanks for watching folks.
- All right. Take care.