Game Changing Sciatica Stretches | Chiropractor for Sciatica 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. At PA Pain and Rehab in Philadelphia, 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.
At Home Stretches for Sciatica Pain
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 good quality of life, for 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 the disc issues. So always try to teach as many different types of stretches that I can help people help themselves. So if you recall, in the previous videos, we talked about the desk, a lot of times people have this forward posture puts a lot of pressure on the front of the spine, on the front of the vertebrae on the front of the desk. And if 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 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. So we’re trying to promote better posture, better alignment, better mobility.
Standing Extension Exercise
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 comfortable, don’t do a standing up exercise, including this one. We want to promote extension were so forward flex 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 it right above your beltline to stabilize, you’re going to point your fingers down towards the floor, you’re going to 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, can 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 on your leg. Don’t do this one. Okay. So you stand up nice and 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 into extension to take pressure off the desk help to reset the posture, help the reset the desk, tuck the stretch out below 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 to do it hold for as long as you can till you’re comfortable. And then relax. And you can do, 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.
Sitting Piriformis Muscle Stretch
So this next one requires a chair or something that you can prop up, you’re going to sit down for this one. And this one, we’re going to be stretching out a muscle right, right in this area. It’s called the piriformis muscle. But the piriformis muscle when it’s when it’s tight or irritated can 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. So this is one of my favorite stretches. I do it almost every day. And it’s it’s a way to help promote even good posture while you’re sitting. So you’re going across if you’re able, again, if you’re having a hip issue, any issue or ankle issue, it may be hard to get into this position. But if you can get into this position, you’re going to grab your ankle like this, you’re going to grab your knee like this, you’re going to sit up nice and straight. Sorry, putting you in good posture just like this, you’re going to pull toward 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. Okay, 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. One is 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 at 10. Right, 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. So again, you could 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’ll pull it towards myself and I can feel that stretch, but it’s also promoting good posture.
Contact us with all your Sciatica Pain Questions
So these are some of my favorite stretches that we teach patients at pap to rehab. We really like to educate our patients we believe knowledge is power. The more information that patient has, I think the better outcome they will, 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 tried to encourage people to do things at home. It’s very empowering. When a patient stretches and does something for themselves it gets gets relieved. So I hope this information was useful. Appreciate your time. Thank you for watching. See on the next video. Have a great day.
