Hey, what’s up everybody? My name is Dr. Rogers Saias, your chiropractor for disc pain in Philadelphia, PA. At PA Pain and Rehab, we like to educate our patients. We like to give our patients things to do at home, exercises that are going to improve their quality of life.
Disc Pain Assessment in Philadelphia, PA
Most of the patients that we see in our practices are not having a good time right now; they’re injured. They’re not having a good quality of life. If anything, their quality of life has been diminished as a result of their injuries.
We see this time and time again, especially with patients that have disc issues. So I always try to teach as many different types of stretches that I can to help people help themselves. So if you recall in the previous videos, we talked about the disc. A lot of times people have this forward posture. It puts a lot of pressure on the front of the spine, on the front of the vertebrae, on the front of the disc.
If you remember I talked about the ice cream sandwich. If you put too much pressure on the front of an ice cream sandwich, it pushes the ice cream backwards. If you put too much pressure on the front of the vertebrae because of an injury, or because we sit too much, you can again push that disc backwards, causing irritation to the nerves or even the spinal cord, depending on what else is going on in the joints.
Disc Injury Exercises in Philadelphia, PA
So we’re trying to promote better posture, better alignment, better mobility. So this first exercise is a standing up exercise. So before you do any kind of standing up exercise if you have any balance issues, or if you don’t feel stable or uncomfortable, don’t do a standing up exercise including this one.
We want to promote extension. We’re so forward-flexed, pushing the disc backwards, we want to promote a little bit of extension to help push the disc away. So if you’re having a disc issue where the disc is getting pushed backwards, this is the right exercise for you.
So you’re going to stand up nice and straight. You’re going to take this part of your hands, you’re going to place them right above your belt line to stabilize. You’re going to point your fingers down towards the floor. Stand up nice and straight. Look straight ahead and you’re going to simply just bend backwards. So you’re going to just apply pressure, you’re going to push your hips a little bit forward, you’re going to bend backwards.
We don’t want to go too far backwards. We just want to go backwards enough where we feel that stretch. Again if you’re having a low back issue or pain down your leg, and it’s causing more pain in your back and more pain down your leg. Don’t do this one. Okay?
So you stand up nicely straight, put your fingers down, stabilize your low back, lean backwards, feel that stretch. Again, we’re pushing the pelvis and the spine forward. We’re trying to put the spine to extension to take pressure off the disc. Help to reset the posture, help to reset the disc, help to stretch out the low back.
Again, hopefully you’re getting a reduction of symptoms. But this is the standing McKenzie exercise. It’s very simple. No magic number on how long you do it. Hold for as long as you can till you’re comfortable and then relax. And you can do multiple repetitions of this exercise. This is something that you could do all day long. If you’re someone who sits for a living and you’re at a desk this is something that you should be doing on a continuous basis along with making sure you have good computer ergonomics and workstation ergonomics.
Disc Injury Stretching in Philadelphia, PA
So this next one requires a chair or something that you can prop up. You’re going to sit down for this one. And in this one, we’re going to be stretching out a muscle right, right in this area. It’s called the piriformis muscle. Now the piriformis muscle when it’s tight or irritated, you also irritate the sciatic nerve.
So sometimes by releasing this muscle, it creates more space and less tension. And so we sometimes see a reduction in symptoms. This is one of my favorite stretches. I do it almost every day, and it’s a way to help promote even good posture while you’re sitting.
So you’re gonna sit, if you’re able, if you’re having a hip issue, a knee issue or an ankle issue may be hard to get into this position. But if you can get into this position, you’re gonna grab your ankle like this. Grab your knee like this. You’re gonna sit up nice and straight. It’s already putting you in good posture just like this. You’re going to pull towards you. So you’re going to just gently pull your knee and your ankle towards your chest as you bend forward.
Again, you don’t want to bend like this. You just want to slowly start to bend forward at the waist, lean forward, and you should feel that stretching right back through here. Ok that’s where I feel it. So I like to hold this one for as long as I can. So I might hold this for 30 seconds. I may hold this for a minute. You want to just feel that open up.
If you’re a beginner, you want to just kind of ease into it. Hold it for three to five seconds, and just relax. You can do repetitions of 10, switch sides. Whatever you do on one side you want to do on the other. I think it’s great to do both sides. You always want to start with the side that hurts.
Chiropractic for Disc Pain in Philadelphia, PA
So again, you can do this throughout the day. You do this a couple times a day. For me, if I find myself sitting in a chair for a long period of time, I will just sit like this because as I’m sitting here, I’m pulling towards myself and I can feel that stretch, but it’s also promoting good posture.
So these are some of my favorite stretches that we teach patients at pap rehab. We really like to educate our patients. We believe knowledge is power. The more information the patient has, I think the better outcome they will experience.
So if you have any questions about this video, feel free to give us a call. Feel free to send us an email, or drop a comment on this video and ask any question you have. Again, we try to encourage people to do things at home. It’s very empowering when a patient stretches and does something for themselves and gets relief.
So I hope this information was useful. I appreciate your time. Thank you for watching, see on the next video. Have a great day.
