Neck & Back

ProMotion Rehab and Sports Medicine in Columbia, Camden, Florence, Lake City, SC is here to help you find Neck Pain & Headache Relief

Your neck is an incredibly sensitive and complex part of your body. For this reason, neck pain can be debilitating. It can also be scary and stressful, especially when you aren’t sure of the cause of the pain, or have a clear understanding of when the pain may go away.

Neck pain can come in a wide variety of forms. It can be chronic or acute, sharp or dull, but whatever the type and cause, all neck pain shares one clear detail in common: It needs to be addressed, and quickly. Ignoring your neck pain can lead to complications with your injury and in some situations can even lead to worsened pain! The smart thing to do is to get help—and as quickly as possible.

The Cause of Neck Pain

The neck is directly connected to the spine and head. This means that it is at a crucial position in the body, but one that makes it more susceptible to serious issues. Neck pain can develop after a serious back injury, or it can develop as tension builds due to emotional stressors. Identifying the cause of your neck pain relief is step one in determining the right treatment.

Common causes of neck pain include:

• Whiplash, as from a car accident or similar injury
• Poor posture
• Repeated motion
• Tension build-up

Neck Pain and Headaches

One of the reasons neck pain is so common is due to the number of nerve endings present in the neck area. The cervical plexus is the home to eight different spinal nerves, each of them branching off at one end toward the cerebral column, and at the other end toward the spine and shoulders. Because of this, pain that starts in the neck will often travel to the shoulders, the back, and even into the head itself.

This is why neck pain is so largely associated with headaches, including migraine headaches. In some situations, chronic headaches could be caused by neck pain, and in some circumstances, physical therapy to address neck pain could reduce the frequency and severity of migraine headaches.

Sometimes, the neck pain may seem dull and unimportant, but it could still be the core of much larger problems. In addition, neck pain is often responsible for limiting your range of motion and can cause tension to build up in your shoulders, potentially causing even more pain.

Physical Therapy for Neck Pain

There are a series of practices available through physical therapy proven to be helpful in addressing neck pain Relief. Musculoskeletal experts have found that targeted exercises that improve flexibility, strength and range of motion are much more effective at treating neck pain than are medicinal treatments.

Typically, physical therapy for neck pain Relief will incorporate manual therapy, which includes joint mobilization, passive movement, and trigger point therapy to alleviate tension in the neck, as well as targeted exercises for stretching and strengthening.

Many physical therapists will be able to make ergonomic recommendations that can help you reduce neck pain by providing your neck with more targeted support when you drive, sit at your desk, and even when you sleep. This can be an additional helpful source of support.

Neck pain is not something you should deal with long-term. The sooner you can solve the mystery of your neck pain, the sooner you can get back to your day-to-day life. For more information about treating neck pain with physical therapy, Contact Us today at Lake City, Florence, and Camden, SC Centers.

Do you have back pain or sciatica pain? You’re not alone! According to the World Health Organization, low back pain is so prevalent that up to 70% of us experience it at least once in our lifetime. For many of us, this pain can become a chronic issue.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans struggling with signs and symptoms of sciatica or low back pain, we encourage you to set up an initial physical therapy appointment so we can get to the bottom of your dysfunction.

What Is Sciatica?

In your lumbar spine (lower back), you have two large nerves exiting on the right and left sides of your spinal column. These nerves, called the sciatic nerves, are the largest in your body and provide motor and sensory input to your legs. Several different nerve roots join together to form the sciatic nerves, which then divide and branch off as they travel into the legs.

With sciatica, something irritates and/or compresses one of these nerves near the spine, leading to inflammation and tissue irritation. Sciatica may also be referred to as lumbar radiculopathy (with radiculopathy being a general term to describe spinal nerve impingement).

What’s compressing the sciatic nerve in the first place? A change in disc orientation may cause pressure on the nearby nerve, in addition to other common age-related changes, such as degenerative disc changes, stenosis, and arthritis. This may happen due to wear and tear, acute trauma, or chronic repetitive stress. However, keep in mind that many studies on thousands of patients have shown asymptomatic persons (i.e. pain-free!) to have similar imaging findings that include disc bulges, herniations, stenosis, arthritis, or other age-related changes when compared to patients who DO have pain. Conversely, patients experiencing “sciatica pain” often have a clean MRI. This means that we can’t rely on imaging to diagnose a condition like sciatica, and oftentimes imaging may not even be necessary to determine how to properly treat sciatica pain.

More rarely, sciatica can be caused by bony tumours. A more distal portion of the sciatic nerve can also be compressed by a muscle in the hip called the piriformis, in a similar yet unique condition, aptly known as piriformis syndrome.

Common Symptoms & Risk Factors of Sciatica and Other Types of Low Back Pain

Though the sciatic nerves originate in the lower spine, it’s not uncommon for some people experiencing sciatica to have no back pain at all! Instead, their symptoms primarily follow the motor and sensory distribution pattern of the nerves as they travel into the right or left leg. Such symptoms may include:

• Pain that radiates into the buttocks, back of the leg, and sometimes the foot (sciatica pain often feels sharp, numb, burning, stabbing or shooting)
• Numbness and tingling in the leg
• Weakness in the leg
• Decreased reflexes in the leg

Additional symptoms can include spinal muscle spasms and tenderness, back stiffness, decreased tolerance to exercise and decreased range of motion in the hips. A person’s low back pain or sciatica pain may be worse first thing in the morning, or after prolonged bouts of sitting or standing.

People who are more likely to experience sciatica include men between the ages of 30 and 50, people who stand or sit a lot, people with physically demanding occupations that require regular lifting, pulling, pushing or bending, and people who have experienced some sort of physical trauma, such as an auto or sports accident. Smoking, diabetes, and obesity are also believed to increase a person’s risk of sciatica and low back pain, given their tendency to promote inflammation and stress in the body.

How Physical Therapy Can Diagnose & Manage Sciatica

Robust research has proven that physical therapy is effective for those who suffer from back pain or sciatica pain. It’s safe, cost-effective, drug-free, and non-invasive, and recommended by professional organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Physical therapy treatment can even reduce or prevent the need for pain medications and expensive imaging studies like MRIs and X-rays!

When a physical therapist works with you for relief from your sciatica pain, the main goal will be to reduce your symptoms and alleviate the pressure on the sciatic nerve so that your symptom relief is longer lasting. Additional goals will be to heal any injured tissues, reduce inflammation, improve core stability and strength, restore function, and ultimately get you on a sustainable exercise program to help you maintain your outcomes.

In order to achieve these objectives, your sciatica or low back pain plan of care may include:

• Manual therapy, including joint mobilization, muscle energy techniques, soft tissue mobilization, and sometimes spinal traction
• Therapeutic exercises, stretches, self mobilizations, and evidence-based core stabilization protocols (this means scientific studies have been done to vet the exercises’ effectiveness)
• Aquatic therapy
• Dry needling
• Non-invasive modalities, including electrical stimulation and ice or heat for pain management

Are you experiencing back pain or symptoms related to sciatica? In some states, including South Carolina, patients are allowed direct access to physical therapists, meaning they don’t need a referral from their primary care physician. We encourage you to talk to us or your doctor about getting started with a physical therapy program. Contact Us today at one of our four convenient locations in Lake City, Florence, & Camden, SC, to learn more and get back to the healthy pain-free life you deserve.