Radiculopathy Part 3

Caller: I was in a car accident, a roll over car accident on the freeway that resulted in Bulging Discs in my spine and a herniated disc in my neck. They cause me a great deal of pain.

Dr. Darrow: Do you have any pain that goes down your arms or legs?

Caller: Down my arms especially on one side, the left side

Dr. Darrow: (If it is a nerve problem) One of the first things I would try (even before Prolotherapy) is spinal decompression therapy. Spinal decompression therapy is like traction except it pulls you in different directions. What it does is pull on the spine and open up the foramen which are the holes in the spinal cord which the nerves pass through that go down the arm and very often with a series of decompressions, you can aleviate the problem by in essence, giving the nerve more room to breath.

The other thing is that there are trigger points often that can cause these radiating pains down the limbs and even though you say you a herniated disc, that doesn’t mean that that is causing your pain or the pain radiation, because there are trigger points that can create the referral pain patterns just as well as what we call radiculopathy or pinched nerve, so you need to go to someone who understands these different mechanisms and just doesn’t follow the allopathic medical model of “herniated disc – go to surgery.”

We find that most of the people that have these problems with radiating pain is that the radiating pain actually goes away by itself, even without doctors over a period of time, now it can be cyclical thing and come back but often times I have had patients who have fought me and gone to surgery and not only winding up with pain in one limb, but pain going down the other limb as well probably because of scar tissue that forms. Return to Radiculopathy main page