Sciatica And Chiropractic Treatment – Does It Help Or Harm?

Sciatica and chiropractic treatment, now there’s a subject for a long discussion.  Sciatica pain can be caused by a variety of underlying causes, and where there are many causes, there are also many different kinds of treatments; chiropractic treatments among them.

There are those who believe chiropractic treatment helps any kind of back pain and there are others who believe it should be avoided altogether.  The truth is most likely somewhere down the middle.

There are several causes of sciatica pain that benefit from various kinds of chiropractic treatments, not during an acute flare up, but in the treatment of a chronic sciatica history.

Aside from spinal adjustments, the chiropractor has different ways to relieve sciatica pain and help you regain mobility and strength, as some chiropractors use physical therapy alongside the manipulations.  A chiropractor will also be able to teach you about exercise, proper body mechanics and ergonomics to prevent back pain from recurring.  Among the exercises there will most likely be stretching and strengthening exercises to relieve and retrain the various muscle groups that hold up the spine.

Once a chiropractor used spinal manipulation to bring you relief, massage therapy may be a excellent next step, since massages help loosening up tight muscles and stretching the muscles can help keeping the adjustment where it is supposed to be.  Oftentimes massage therapy is also used to prepare the patient’s tensed muscles for a spinal adjustment.

So what are some of the risks of chiropractic treatment for sciatica pain?  Not all causes of sciatica pain benefit from such treatment or are even considered unsafe, as for example advanced osteoarthritis of the spine.  Rotational adjustments to the neck have a minimal but serious risk (one to two in a million) of stroke.  If your pain is in the lower back you could question not to have your neck treated.  Claims have also been made that chiropractic treatment has really caused disks to herniate.  When adjustment are being performed too often and too forcefully hypermobility of the joints can be a result, as can microscopic tearing and consequently scarring in ligaments, both of which rather worsen your condition in the long run.

Is chiropractic treatment the solution for your sciatica pain?  It’s probably not the solution, but a valid part of it.  Are there risks?  Most certainly there are, but then there are risks in any kind of medical treatments.  Spinal injections aren’t risk free either, not the procedure, nor the side effects of the medication.  In the end you have to inform yourself about your options, weigh the risks, choose the right professionals and choose which kind of treatment you are comfortable with.

In my opinion, chiropractic treatment should never be seen as a total solution, since the adjustments and other procedures don’t remove the cause of the sciatica pain, but alleviate the pain and pressure.  Chiropractics need to be part of a treatment plot that has to have the strengthening and restoration of muscle strength and structure as a goal, as any serious chiropractor would point out him/herself, to bring your body to the point where it can take care of the spine itself through muscle tissue, ligaments and tendons strong enough to do the job right.