Tis the season to be jolly, but if you suffer from pain, you just may feel like the Scrooge.
The Pinch of the Pain
Do you have sharp, intense pain that radiates down your arm or leg? Do you experience pins and needles or burning sensation? Or are your hands or feet a different temperature?
If so, it is no wonder that you are you feeling like the Scrooge. When you live with these painful symptoms for a long time and mask them with pain medication or just learned to live with them, you become quite a different person.
The Central Bank of Nerve Roots
There are billions of nerve fibers in your body, often arranged in bundles called nerves. Many billions of them travel inside the spinal column as part of the spinal cord and exit through openings between the vertebrae. After leaving the spinal column, the nerves separate into smaller and smaller bundles and travel to every nook and cranny in your body.
The pinching of a nerve can happen anywhere in your spine. When the nerves are pinched or compressed roots, they affect nerves that go to your arms, fingers, wrist, neck, back, shoulder, head, legs, muscles and internal organs, and can affect your general health, posture, energy level, resistance to disease – even your emotional health.
The Vision of Life Without Nerves
Without nerves, you couldn’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell. You also wouldn’t be able to feel hot, cold, pain or pleasure. Your body would be the ultimate sensory deprivation tank; you’d be completely cut off from existence. Without nerves, you are completely paralyzed – no muscles could move. Your body wouldn’t be able to respond to any of your commands, and you’d be a prisoner within yourself.
Most importantly, nerves regulate your breathing, sweating, shivering, internal organ function, heartbeat, digestion, excretion, blood supply to different organs and blood pressure.
How Do I “Pinch” A Nerve?
When the nerves come down from the brain, they travel through a bony canal formed by vertebrae. If the vertebrae are misaligned slightly, they may cause the nerves to be irritated, compressed or stretched. Nerves transmit electrical impulses and chemical nutrients, which are necessary for muscle health.
What can cause nerve pinching or impingement? A fall or an accident, even a very mild one that happened years ago, may be enough to misalign your spine. Some common causes are unnatural sleeping positions, bad posture, fatigue, dental work, a difficult birth, emotional stress, poor nutrition or a combination of stresses.
The Dis-Ease of Pinched Nerves
When the nerves are compressed, their impulses are altered and can affect the entire body. A dis-ease, a general weakening of your body, sets the stage for diseases of all kinds.
Chiropractors have observed many physical and emotional conditions of due to abnormal function of the nervous system. Some of these include ulcers, constipation, diarrhea, lung conditions such as asthma, fevers, headaches, seizures, allergies, bed-wetting, colds, hearing, vision and a host of other problems.
When the spinal column is misaligned, the entire skeletal system becomes thrown off balance, which can cause fatigue and exhaustion (common early signs of spinal problems).
Understanding the Pain of Pinched Nerves
Most people with pinched nerves are not in pain. People who suffer from painful pinched nerves might be considered the lucky ones – they know they have a problem in their spine and they (hopefully) will get themselves checked by a chiropractor.
But what about the people without pain? Less than 10% of the nerve system can feel pain, so you don’t always know if there’s a problem.
Our Sleigh of Solutions
Our expert team specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of “pinched” and trapped nerves. So before this holiday season passes you by schedule to visit our team and let us help you leave your pinched nerve pain in Christmas past.
For Your Health,
Dr. Joseph Gambardella, Dr. Benjamin Erb and Dr. Gail Behar