Diagnosing a Disc Injury With 2 Simple Tests | Chiropractor for Low Back Pain in Philadelphia, PA
Hey, what’s up everybody? My name is Dr. Rogers Saias. I’m the clinical director at PA Pain and Rehab in Philadelphia. Today I wanted to talk to you about disc related injuries and two tests that you could do at home right now to determine whether or not you’re suffering from a disc related problem.
At Home Tests for Disc Injury
So if you recall, in the other video I did, we talked about what causes a disc problem. And one of the most common problems we see is this, this forward lean, we see so many people with the forward head posture or after a car accident after whiplash, a lot of people are just kind of bent over in that forward flexed position. And I talked about if you remember, we talked about the Ice Cream Sandwich analogy, that if you put too much pressure on the front of an ice cream sandwich, it pushes the ice cream backwards. Well, in the case of the discs, and the vertebrae, if you’re bent too far forward, or if you’re, you know, kind of stuck in this position, it’s going to put too much pressure on the front of the desk, and which can then pushed backwards into the spinal cord or irritate the spinal nerves. So here’s two tests at home to determine if the pain that you’re experiencing right now is coming from a disk related injury and you’re having a neurological injury or something else.
The Valsalva Test
So one of them is called the Valsalva test, we’re really kind of a cough test. So you’re going to cough and you’re going to bear down so. So when you cough and you bear down, it increases the pressure inside your body so that if you’re having a disc problem, it’s going to exacerbate that pain. So if you bear down or if you cough, and you get radiating pain going down your arm as a result of it, you probably have a disc related problem. Same thing goes, if you bear down or cough, and you have pain going down your leg, you may have a problem and your low back and the disc may be part of the problem. So that’s one test. So if you’re experiencing radiating pain after doing that test, you absolutely should get that checked out.
The Slump Test
Here’s another test you can do at home, it’s really simple. It’s called the slump test. Right. So we’re trying to reproduce the symptoms, kind of like we did with coughing, so we’re going to slumped down, we’re going to bend our head forward. And while we’re bending our head forward, we’re going to extend our leg. So we’re going to extend the leg that hurt. So if you get pain down your right leg, you’re going to extend your right leg. And while you’re bending forward and extending, you’re going to point your toes towards you. So you’re pointing your toes, you’re extending your leg you’re bent over. If you’re getting pain that radiates from your low back, and you feel that pain reproduced on your leg, you probably have a disc problem. Now, if you’re feeling pain in other areas of your spine, or at the back of your leg, it’s questionable whether or not that’s your problem or not. Yet your best line of defense and fixing any of these problems is giving our office a call, give us a call.
Chiropractic Care for Disc Injuries
Let’s see if we can help you just have a conversation. We can do an evaluation to determine if you’re a candidate for chiropractic care and if we can help you about so if you’re watching this video, and any of these tests are positive or you have questions, give our office a call. You can send us an email if you don’t want to talk to us and that’s totally fine. Or you can even comment on this video which we really appreciate and ask a question. So I hope this information was helpful please if you have any questions or if you’re having any concerns, do not wait and put it off. Get it taken care of as quickly as quickly as possible. And hope this message finds well see on the next video. Have a great day!
