are you having some neck pain with tingling sensation going down your arm shoulder and
upper back welcome back to my channel and the Pilates physical therapist this video I'll be
discussing about c6 and c7 herniated discs with neck pain and I'll show you some gentle
exercises to help with this information at irritation of the nerve that comes out
between this vertebra so get your mat ready a scarf and a pillow or a towel to start with
let's first discuss the anatomy of our neck there's seven cervical vertebrae one two three
four five six seven as you go further down the disc in between this vertebrae gets thicker the
major shock absorption for our neck and because our heads which is our skull you see is really
heavy it's like a bowling ball so average weight they said is 12 pounds depends on the size and the
weight and because of our lifestyles sometimes we have a normal lordosis of her neck we ended
up with our cellphone in the computer looking down causes a tightening of your neck muscles
and then you ended up with a flat neck or sometimes increased low doses and with that
the disc which is made up of fibers we call it the annular fibers and then there's a nucleus pulposus
in the middle which is like a gel like structure usually made of water and baibe and when you move
your neck it moves around and usually it gets irritated and pops out of the disc because of
wear and tear degeneration or an injury or chronic positioning and with this position
you ended up the test usually is the most common disc herniation is the c6 and c7 because it has
the most discs and most mobile one of the most mobile for our neck hisui c7 and thoracic is the
most mobile but because of the disk of c6 and c7 has a lot of muscle supporting and attach in
it the muscles that are attached on c7 spinous process are the traps these the multifidus and
these verticals spinalis so with these muscles it gets really tight and weak so that's why I
have this scarf and towel to start with so the first exercise we're gonna do is we're gonna
put this towel or scarf around your neck area where the 6:37 area is with this inflammation
you see a lot of numbness and tingling sensation in one side so my recommendation is to use the
side of your stronger arm without irritation and without the weakness and because of that
if you use the bad side you might get that this more irritated at my recommendation of course is
to see a doctor and have an MRI on your neck to make sure you're really positive because the most
common discrimination is posterolateral where the disk goes out to the side but if you have
a disk herniation going in inward or anterior medial this is not the right exercise for you
if it goes forward or goes back and middle that irritates the spinal cord already so if you have
weakness going down your leg already then you know it's not just the the disc irritation is
really bad the red just there's five types grades of disk herination and grade five is a slip disc
already and we want to make sure you don't want to make this irritated more so please see a doctor if
that's the case but for those who are still milder and just a little bit numbness and weakness then
this is appropriate for now so with this you put it in that area and then you look straight
and then you gently pull it up and as as well as you're slowly looking up and feel that's tugging
stretch and hold it you saw me hold it for five seconds for beginners and then slowly increase
it up to ten seconds hold so again you grab a scarf or a towel and gently tuck it forward not
too tough not too strong gently as you feel the release anta because I said earlier I have no
cervical disc herniation but my recommendation is to use the good side so you can practice with with
your good arm without the pain and slowly go up and hold this I'm going to be sad wait so you can
see as high as you can and you slowly progress and the more you can go backward and because of
this irritation the dermatome own level of this cyst 6s c7 you can also pain a weakness on your
rhomboids so you ended up with the scapular weakness or winning of your scapula so these
are the exercises I'll show you as we progress so today is mostly stretching I'll do a follow along
video next with for this exercises after you've done this for at least a week before we do a
strength training program with a thoracic periban because if you start doing this strength training
without stretching first you might irritate your neck more so stretching this way is the best way
to start with and after doing that then you can do some nerve glides so it's like flossing your
teeth but this time you're flossing it on the nerve near the irritation of the inflammation
of your disc the first one is the median nerve so there's three major nerves as they come together
from c12 to c7 and it branches out on your armpit area and goes all the way down here so
the first one and my recommendation if it's really inflamed is to do it lying down and then you get
and then you slowly Ben your needs to support your spine and then slowly open your arms out
fingers pointing down and looking straight making sure your shoulders are comfortable on the pillow
your head is supported and back you can also roll a towel or this car and support it on your
neck area so you're not irritating the disk then slowly pull your belly button in to engage your
core take a deep breath through your nose and blow through your mouth while like hugging like a big
tree and slowly opening it out fingers pointing down the floor and you can do this in your bed so
you can further go all the way down to stretch the nerve lossing this nerve it helps pull tug
the area helps the inflammation on your neck so do that at least five seconds hold up to ten times so
the next one is on learn ERV so this one you clasp your fingers if you do it in sitting in your desk
in your computer and you're really irritated and then you pull up after twisting your wrist
out and you can feel a stretch on all the way to your pinky area and then down and here so if you
want to start lying down in the morning when you wake up well you put the Roll towel in your neck
twist out and pull it out with your breath don't forget your breathing inhale through your nose to
the center heads out again do it five seconds hold up to ten times and the third nerve is the radial
nerve so raychel nerve supplies our thumb area you clasp your fingers hug yourself in the cross
open and twist it backwards so you feel a stretch on your forearm area so that's the radial nerve
and when you do that it pulls the area all the way down here and my recommendation if the disc
herniation is in your left tilt your head to the right and you feel that stretch more so you can do
it as well and line down if sitting up is too much pressure on your neck because just with gravity
it causes the disc to be irritated more so when you're lying down you're you're against gravity
so cross open and twist and then tilt your head away from the herniated disk and you feel that
bug and pulled and then hold it for five seconds four three two one and then go back to the center
and then hundred-something my recommendation open lean away from the herniated disc floss to the
center and cross do that as well up to ten times so that's what we call nerve glides the fourth way
that you can help the disc is to do some chin tucks so when you do chin tucks make sure your
shoulders are out you can get the back support Church fingers on your chin area and push back
not pushing with your chin just a reminder you're utilizing your neck muscles if this is too hard
for you to make sure you're not looking down and not looking up doing it straight up get a mirror
see your posture and go back and if you're tilted towards the disc that's not good as well making
sure you're really straight and not tilted so that's why you have your chin with your fingers
to remind yourself to be straight and as you can fill up tugging stretch on the muscles that's
really tight okay and then you can also do that in lying down with the neck support with a pillow all
the way down here and then you can do chin tuck if it's too much for you to do it it's it bingos down
more on your hand than it schedulers we are trying to centralize the pain and the fifth one we'll
grab a towel again and you can also do the stretch remember we didn't settle up earlier one put it on
your neck go at the edge of your bed of a pillow here and then while you're slowly pulling up you
look it up and you feel that lovely stretch on your neck and hold it for five four three two one
and dive and do that as well ten times so those are the gentle stretching and gliding of your
nerves to start with if you do this every single day at least twice a day it helps the information
my recommendation is also put some heat on your neck to start for 20 minutes to warm up the
tissue strip and if you notice the next day it's getting worse then stop but sometimes it takes a
week to see progress if you know it's just more muscle tightness and you feel sore that's okay
because you're stretching muscles that you never stretched before and then as we slowly progress I
will show you how to strengthen these muscles as I described earlier than atomy where these
muscles will support your neck so we're gonna bring up an elastic band to slowly strengthen
a gentle one to begin with the next exercise is isometrics isometrics means you're not gonna do
a movement pattern but you're strengthening it in a static position so if you have weakness on
your right side we want to focus on this weakness and usually your cervical muscles here are really
weak and tight so we need to a contraction on the muscle and then we'll do stretching after
it helps relax the muscles more so if samples this is the side you're gonna put your palm of
your hand here and slowly resist it you can start with just simple five seconds hold five four three
two one and relax making sure you engage your core muscles tilts with your breath so inhale through
your nose and blow and contracts with this one side weakness so it's gonna be sometimes difficult
to lift your right arm so my recommendation is to use the other arm the stronger side and hold
it for five four - one and blow to relax more the contraction so usually you can do it in all
different directions so if there's a pinching pain when you turn to the right don't do it but
if there's no pain then Rhys is also going the rotation to the right is you need this movement
patterns so you're gonna resist it while going to that motion and you stop before the pain and
you take a deep breath and hold it for five four three two one this start gentle five seconds hold
even just a few seconds hold a quanta tube and then slowly build it up to five and then ten and
then up to ten repetitions it's also beneficial to assess the good side to keep everything balanced
on your neck muscles to take a deep breath five four three two one and relax and after doing
this gentle isometrics in all directions after a week of doing this with less radiculopathy
and there's more centralizing of pain doing all of these exercises then you can progress with
these elastic band I will do a follow along video with this program a resistance band and
doing everything with you the last exercise is stretching so you're gonna slowly stretch to the
side you can put the palm of your hand on the mat to have stabilization so you're not lifting it up
keeping your back straight and pull it out take a deep breath and then slowly twist up and stretch
feel a lot of stretching on your stay in your clay the mastered muscle and blow and do that
as well five seconds hold up to ten reps so you're gonna go away from the herniated disk and you feel
a release then back so if it's your left side where you have the disc I can't put your palm of
your hand here and slowly lean first to the side so this is a nice side flexion and then rotation
so what we're doing we're doing deeper muscles on your motif adduce muscles and your cervical spine
Sam spinalis and then you're gonna do a little bit of a yoga so you're gonna go to your hands
and knees and we're gonna do some cat and camel so this helps because sometimes your low back
muscles gets tight with neck problem and your core muscles so it's nice to engage your core
gently that's hurting your neck so even in this position you might feel it's difficult if you're
not ready to do cat in camel it's fine the more you do your other exercises this route get better
and easier so you can start pulling your stomach in look down take a deep breath like an angry cat
and they slowly go up your tush out you feel that gentle tug on your low back muscles and look up
as high as you can and blow and my recommendation is hold five seconds in each way with your breaths
five four three two one and slowly go up take a deep breath and blow and hold it for five four
three two one up to ten repetitions I know I'm just doing this everything in demonstration but
on our next video after you're doing this every single day you might feel a little bit relief
in the beginning or sometimes not it takes a lot of time and patience but if it's getting
worse I really recommend you to see a physical therapist near you or a doctor to have more
testing done on your neck I'm hoping and learn a lot on this video please like a subscribe my
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