♪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.
- When should you try nerve flossing in your neck?
Cervical radiculopathy, we'll talk about this Brad.
- All right, yeah, it's a lot of big words there.
What's it all mean?
- Well cervical radiculopathy usually indicates that
there's some pressure on your nerves
coming out of your neck,
and that they're causing pain, numbness, tingling
down your arm.
- Sure, and it can go all the way to your hand or fingers.
- Absolutely, and what we're trying
to do with nerve flossing,
it's just like you floss your teeth, you know.
You put floss between your teeth to
and you want the floss to glide well.
- Sure.
- Well we want the nerves to glide well
and sometimes there's scar tissue.
- Sure.
- That can be holding them up.
They might be, the holes that they come out might not
be as large as they should be.
- Yep, they have a pathway and they need to glide
in there. - Right.
- So what we're gonna do is help that out.
- Right, I generally look at flossing as
more of a treatment that I try at the end.
I try other treatments first. - Sure.
- Because you have to be very careful with it,
it can make your pain better but it can also make it worse.
You know, when we show you how to do it
on a next video, we go into that,
what you should be looking for.
- Yeah if you get too aggressive with it,
you can have a sore day the next day.
- You can fire up and you can say what were Bob and Brad
doing recommending this. - Yep.
- So three things I want you to consider.
One, if you, want to make sure that you have
a pinched nerve.
You should be diagnosed by a doctor.
We do have a video called five tests to determine
if you have a pinched nerve in your neck.
But that's really kind of used as an adjunct
to seeing a doctor. - Sure.
- You know we want you to.
- Yeah don't try to self-diagnose a pinched nerve.
- Yeah these are serious issues
when you have a pinched nerve.
I mean you can start getting weakness
and pinched nerve is pain. - Right.
- That's some of the worst pain you're gonna get.
It's like going to the dentist.
- Right, oftentimes it's not just pain but you know
most might associate pain with numbness, tingling,
burning like cold water running down your arm.
- Weird sensations.
- Yeah it's unusual.
- Weird sensations.
And before flossing, we really recommend that
you want to try the exercises in this video
called number one stretch and exercise program
for neck pain, pinched nerve and so on.
This is part of our video series,
we might as well mention it right now, Brad.
- All good, yep.
- If you go to bobandbrad.com, we have a video series
on treating neck pain and pinched nerves in the neck.
And so look for, under the program section for neck pain,
and in there you're gonna find I don't know,
20, 30 some videos.
Watch the ones that pertain to you.
You'll find that one, number one stretch and exercise
program for neck pain, pinched nerve.
- Right so on the title, it'll be about a ten minute video
typically, and you'll see a little click thing.
- PDF.
- PDF thing, you'd click on that
and you can get a print out of the preview
of a review of the video as well as exercises
as a reminder so you can do it conveniently.
- Yeah so you can print out the PDF from that video
and watch all the, see the exercises and bring it with you.
- Yep and we don't even ask for an email, it's all free.
- It's all free.
So the third thing is you're gonna need to know
which nerve you're trying to floss.
There's three main nerves that are in the arm.
There's the median, there's the ulnar and
there's the radial.
And you know we have a chart
that well, we have a whole video on it actually, Brad.
Five tests to determine if you have a pinched nerve,
that one I was talking about.
That actually shows you, based upon where you're feeling
the pain, like for example, here's the median nerve.
It often involves half of the thumb,
the full pointer finger, right.
- Pointer finger, yep.
- And half of the middle finger.
- Nope, the full middle finger
and half of the ring finger.
- Nope, you're wrong.
- Well we'll look at this later, Bob.
Doesn't matter.
- It might be, he might be right.
But anyway, it's right here.
You know, if it's radial, it's just half of the thumb
and kind of back here on the tops.
- Sure.
- If it's ulnar, it's on this side.
- Yeah, we both agree with the ulnar.
But it yeah, it's like.
- Right, that'll tell you which nerve you want to floss
cause each nerve flossing is different,
the way we do it. - Right, right.
- So it's kind of involved, you know you have to watch
that next video on how to do it.
- Sure.
- So check it out, good luck to you.
(upbeat music)