♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical Therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
(intro music ends)
- Howdy 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.
- If your back pain ever does this, see Doctor, now.
Not see Dr. Now, not the name of Dr. Now.
See the Doctor, now!
- Emergency - It's an emergency, yes.
- That's a serious concern.
- A little back pain is very, very common,
obviously, most of us have had it.
But the vast majority will never need surgery,
but there is a rare case where you get severe back pain
where you're gonna want to see the Doctor immediately.
- Right.
- And that's what we're gonna be talking about today.
But if you're new to our channel,
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And yes you don't wanna join us on our social media channels
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- Right.
- Right now if you go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaways section, you're gonna find out
that we're giving away the Wall Anchor.
This is something that we actually invented ourselves.
Yep, it's the device you can put on the wall
and through it you can actually hook up
the exercise bands or exercise tubings.
Very helpful, you can really set up a whole wall workout.
- Right. I call it wall fitness.
- Wall fitness that's right.
You can also go to Facebook Bob and Brad.
- There you go.
- So enough with the advertisement.
Next on, let's go to what we're talking about here.
If you get severe back pain and these other symptoms,
or some of these other symptoms which we'll go over,
this could be a sign of Cauda Equina Syndrome.
Now that's a big word, Cauda Equina,
but what does it actually mean in Latin, Brad?
- Horse tail.
- Right, horse tail.
And we're gonna show you right here why it's called that.
So you have your spinal cord, and it comes down,
runs in through the bones, in the little canal there.
And it comes out and it goes right into the sacrum here.
But if you take away the bones of the sacrum here.
Look at that, that's the spinal cord as it spreads out
and sends the nerves into the extremities.
- Right, as it comes into the lumbar spine,
instead of being one solid core,
it starts to turn into the individual nerves.
And it kinda resembles a little bit of a horse tail
so they call it Cauda Equina.
- And the syndrome
is when you're actually compressing on these nerves.
And we'll tell you how that could present itself.
Generally, the most common cause of it, by far,
would be a disk herniation.
And it would be a major disk herniation, not a minor one.
This is a huge blow out of a disk.
And what you need is surgery immediately.
So, let's talk about five different things,
the way they can present themselves here, Brad.
Number one, it can affect your bladder.
You know, you can have the inability to start, stop
or control urination.
Of course as we get older,
that's a sign some of us are already having.
So, you have to distinguish between that and a new change.
If it just shows up.
Lack of sensation when urinating,
loss of full bladder sensation,
inability to empty the bladder, all those things.
Number two, it can affect your bowels.
And that's why Doctors always ask,
"Has it affected your bowel and bladder?"
- Right, right.
- The bowel function, same thing, loss of feeling,
constipation, loss of control.
- Right.
- And again, if this suddenly shows up,
that's not a good sign.
Especially if you have a long, with back pain.
Number three, saddle anesthesia,
Brad, do you wanna explain what that is?
- That's numbness, okay?
Numbness and like, if you sit on a horse,
or your bicycle saddle, the seat of a bike,
where that makes contact in your groin area,
and on your bottom, that area of contact, would be numb.
- Loss of feeling.
- That tingling feeling,
any of that numbness type of a feeling,
that's that saddle, you know.
- Anesthesia. - Anesthesia, sorry.
- So it would be like a loss of feeling
when using the toilet paper, even maybe.
- Right, you can't feel yourself, cleaning yourself.
- Can't wipe yourself, yeah.
Number four, sexual disfunction,
loss of sensation during sexual intercourse.
You have trouble getting an erection and all that.
That all could be also symptom,
especially if it's coupled up with some of the other signs.
- Right, 'cause these are all related by those nerve tracks.
- Those nerves, that's where these nerves affect.
And that's why, these are important things in life.
I mean, you don't want to have permanent incontinence
and have troubles with your bowel and bladder
for the rest of your life.
And the sexual disfunction too.
So these are are things you don't want to, obviously,
be dealing with.
And number five,
you could actually have some weakness in the legs.
Your toes, you might feel,
they don't bend the way they should,
they don't extend the way they do.
So I had a real life example here,
it's actually, was at this facility, Brad.
And he has since passed away now,
but he was in his 50s and it affected him,
pretty much all five areas.
And he could walk yet because he had some muscles,
but we had to have braces and it was always with assistance.
He never got back to, he ended up living his final days
in a skilled nursing facility because of it.
- Sure, for a number of years.
- For a number of years.
So it's not something to be taken lightly.
Again, severe back pain, along with some of these symptoms
you find yourself running to the Doctor.
- And, on the other hand, I had one person that I did,
I sent her to the emergency room.
She had not all five of these symptoms,
but it made me like "Ah, we need to go."
And she did go and it was not true Cauda Equina.
- It's funny, I had one too.
- So it was good to, but you gotta make sure.
- It's not something you want to-
It's like chest pain.
You gotta get it checked out each time
because the one time you don't,
it's gonna end up being the heart attack.
You're right, I had a lady too,
and I was like, "Oh my God, she's got the symptoms."
And she ended up being fine.
- One way or another, it's something to be aware of.
- Yep, remember Brad, I can fix just about anything.
- Except for.
- A broken heart.
- There you go.
- So, we'll work on it, though, right Brad?
You got any time tonight to work on it?
- No, no, not tonight, just the weekend.
Yeah it's a weekend project.
- All right, sounds good.
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