♪Bob and Brad♪
♪the two most famous♪
♪physical therapists♪
♪on the internet.♪
- Hi, folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck physical therapist.
- You're the real most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course Bob.
Do you have sciatica?
We got some self tests here.
This video by the way is a part
of a series of videos on sciatica.
If you've just happened to wander upon this video.
If you go to bobandbrad.com,
look for the series videos or video programs,
you'll see one on sciatica
and you can follow all the ones
that are part of this series.
- Right.
- Alright, so it's highly recommended
that you see a physician and have tests done by him
or her to determine whether or not you have sciatica
but we always like to have you going in aimed with knowledge
or armed with knowledge, I'm sorry.
And these are some tests that you could do yourself
to kind of maybe give you an indicator
whether or not you have sciatica
or maybe it's something else like sciatica.
- Right, self diagnosis.
You're getting into you know, professionals
can have a hard time diagnosing.
So if you're doing it yourself as a lay person,
take this with - a grain of salt.
- a grain of salt that you're just educating yourself
and you're learning things here.
- Right.
Okay, we're gonna start off with the first one.
This is called a seated straight leg raise.
It doesn't matter because you can do it on both sides.
So I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna test the left side first.
I'm gonna straighten the leg out,
I'm gonna pull my toe toward me
and I'm gonna bend my neck down.
Now I got stretching pain with that,
but if that increases pain down your back into your leg,
possibly could be sciatica.
- Right, and this is nice.
You should compare one leg to the other
and if you feel a big difference
and a different type of pain,
the one of sciatica, that kind of stretching
feels much different than a muscle stretch.
- Right, that's a very good point, Brad
because I do feel stretching on both sides.
So the next one.
We're gonna put a little compression on the spine.
So first, you're gonna sit slouched,
and then while you're sitting slouch,
you're gonna grab the seat pan and pull up on it.
So what that's doing is,
I'm puting pressure through the spine.
When I do this, I want you to put your neck this way
and see what the pain is like
and then put your neck this way.
If it's worse this way, and it's going down the leg,
good possibility that you might have a disc problem.
- At this I'll give a precaution.
If you sit down and you slouch
and already the pain is getting worse
and you're getting pain down the leg,
you're done. - Yeah.
You don't need to do any further.
- Don't do any pulling, don't do the neck thing.
It means that you need to stop.
Doesn't mean it's sciatica but it's an indication.
but certainly don't do anything more
because you make things worse. - Yeah,
we don't wanna make things worse.
Very good point, Brad.
All right, this one is taking you off
into kind of a different direction.
I'm gonna have you reach forward toward the floor.
If you can go all the way down,
go ahead, go all the way down.
What we're looking for on this,
does this decrease your pain?
Okay, let's say it does,
let's say the pain actually decreases.
Then I want you to stand up.
Oh sorry about that, Mike.
I know I'm tall here.
Reach overhead.
And does that increase your pain?
And number three, are you over 55?
If you have yes to all these,
then you might have spinal stenosis.
- Right, so in other words, you bend forward,
oh, it feels better.
And usually sitting feels better with stenosis.
- Right, right.
If it feels worse going forward like this,
now again we're looking at maybe more sciatica.
But if you reach forward and it's better,
you reach above and the pain is worse,
and if you're over 55,
which means arthritis and stuff has had a chance to develop
and degenerative changes, you might have spinal stenosis.
- So with all of these, you're gonna respect the pain.
You don't wanna push into the pain and get it bad.
It's just, oh, it's starting to hurt.
That's enough to stop.
You don't have to see a little bit more.
Don't think no pain, no gain.
That's absolutely not what we're after.
- And the final thing, I think it is also often referred to
as false sciatica, is the piriformis.
Now this the piriformis is a small muscle in your pelvis.
- It goes from here to your sacrum
and it goes right over the top of that sciatic nerve.
- Or the sciatic nerve might pierce through it.
- Sure.
- And if that muscle becomes irritated,
it can send pain down your leg.
So this is one test for possibly piriformis syndrome.
You wanna lay back Brad and show that?
Yeah, you got your mic issue here huh?
- We're all right.
Okay, you can do this in your bed
or you know, carpeted floor works well too.
So if you go up and you bring your knees towards you
and then across to the opposite knee,
that actually puts--
- [Bob] Opposite shoulder. - Opposite shoulder.
Thank you Bob.
I'm not even talking properly,
but that stretches the piriformis.
If you do this, and you compare one side to the other
and one side, let's say this is my piriformis
that's tight or painful.
Usually when you do this,
you feel it there and it's tight and there's pain.
And then you do the other leg and there's a big difference.
It goes farther, there's no symptoms,
all you feel is a normal stretch
in that part of the buttock, chances are you know,
it's a good chance that you have piriformis syndrome.
- Some piriformis involved.
- Not for sure though, it just means it's more
and you know.
- Probably gonna do some more tests
and that's when you need to see the doctor.
But again, that kind of gives you an indicator that,
hey, it's something you could bring up to your physician
and say, hey, do I maybe have piriformis syndrome?
- Right, I mean, I've had people do this comparison
and that made it better already, you know?
- Yeah, just by doing it.
- Then it's clear it's piriformis,
And then you just do the stretch more.
- Doing the stretch, right.
All right, remember again, don't leave things to doubt.
Check things out with your physician.
- Right.