INSTANT RELIEF! How to Treat a Pinched Nerve. Physical Therapy Ex. And Tips

♪ Bob and Brad ♪ ♪ The two most famous ♪ ♪ Physical therapists ♪ ♪ On the Internet ♪ – Hi folks, I'm BobSchrupp, physical therapist.

– Brad Heineck, physical therapist.

– 'Cause we are the mostfamous physical therapists on the Internet.

– In our opinion of course, Bob.

– Here we are in oursecret bunker again, Brad, and today we're gonnatalk about instant relief, how to treat a pinched nerve, we got physical therapy exercises and tips to help you with that problem.

And this is, by the way, representing the pain of a pinched nerve, how it can go all the waydown the arm into the hand.

– Right.

– By the way.

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– Alright, so here let'sjump right into it Brad.

You're getting pain from a pinched nerve, it's going all the way down your arm, possibly even into the hand.

The first thing you wannado is, you wanna avoid, this is a tip, avoidsitting and sleep postures that will make your pain worse.

– Right, and just mention, it could be numbness, burning, tingling, 'cause a pinched nervehas all these weird.

.

.

– Yes, sensations.

= Sometimes they describe it as cold water running downtheir arm, things like that.

– Yeah, whenever you getsomething really strange as far as sensations, it's often a nerve issue.

– So the first thing, I'm gonna show you how to sleep correctly, let's say this is the painful arm.

So, what you wanna do, number one, you wanna avoid sleeping on this shoulder.

– Right, right.

– If you can.

So what you're gonna do, I'm asleep on my side here, by the way, these are myactual pillows, because, Brad, you're probably gonnahave to pan down here.

– Oh, yeah! Do you sleep with your eyes closed, Bob? – What? (laughs) – I was just curious.

– It's funny that you should say that, because my wife often claims I don't.

– [Brad] Oh, I can just imagine.

– So, anyway, I'm gonna sleep on my side, these are my actual pillows, so what I do is, this ismy throw pillow that I use.

– [Brad] Oh, you'vementioned that one many times over the last couple years.

– Yeah, I'll show that in a minute, I don't need that right now.

But I got two pillows on my side, and then actually here's mysleep evasion pillow too, by the way.

So I'm gonna use all these pillows here, I sleep on my side like this.

And so, this is the painful arm, and then you're gonna put a pillow here, but the key is to putanother pillow on top of it to give it support.

Otherwise the arm is down, and curled around like this, all night long, and that'spinching that nerve even more.

– [Brad] You could stretchit a little bit too.

– Right, you can also sleep with just putting the armup on your body like this, that's a good position for it too.

But it's more comfortable, it might be better togo this way actually, you put this pillowunderneath the arm like that.

Alright, I'm gonna show, let'ssay you're just stubborn, like we are, and you'regonna sleep on that shoulder no matter what.

In that case, then youneed the throw pillow.

And you've seen this maybemany times in other videos, you're gonna create the canal here.

And so I'm gonna get my two pillows here, and this creates a canal, I'mgonna be careful with my mic, but this takes pressure, now the pressure is onmy ribcage and my head, not so much on my shoulder.

– [Brad] What about your feet? You gotta get them back on there.

– Well, I'm just tryin'to go halfway on here.

– [Brad] I'm just ribbin' you anyway.

– That'll help you with sleeping.

With sitting, you wanna make sure you're not sitting with a slumped posture.

So when you're in your recliner, you may wanna take again, a throw pillow like this, and it'll help give yousome support in the low back and put your body into a better position, the better the position the neck is in, the less stress there'sgonna be on the nerve.

– [Brad] We probably shouldmention sleeping supine on your back.

– Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Good point, Brad.

So when you're sleeping on your back, it's gonna be the samething here, I'm gonna sleep, usually with one pillow, you wanna thin pillow or just one.

– Thin, thin pillow.

– So, I'm gonna sleep on my back, heck I'm gonna put oneunderneath of my legs.

This is what I do here, I put one here again, and one here like this, andagain, nice and supported.

How's that look Brad?- That pillow, it always drives me nutswhen people have their pillow under their shoulders.

– I know, I'm just trying, I'm watching my mic.

– [Brad] I know, I know, I just wanted to clarify.

– The big idea is to getthe arm supported like that.

But these are not minor things.

If you're irritatingyour neck all day long, and all night long, it's not gonna go away.

Once you pinch that nerveit's gonna get flared up.

Alright, the next thing, Bradyou can maybe come on back in.

You wanna flip thecamera so we can see it? There we go, yeah.

The next thing is, you're gonna wanna do what wecall directional exercises.

And there's usually threeof them that we try, but the point of thereason for the exercises is we want the pain to centralize.

Now, Brad's gonna showyou what that means on me, using me as the example.

– So, you're gonna showone of the exercises that oftentimes centralizes, or should we do it first? – What do you think? Why don't we do one of the exercises and then we can show what we hope to see? – Right, exactly.

– So how about we start with extensions? Usually that's the onewe're gonna start with.

You wanna grab the towel? – [Brad] Oh, you bet.

– Now, with most people, when they start off, I thought you were gonna do it? – Oh, yeah, okay.

– With most people, when they start off, usually it's extension whatwe're gonna have 'em do, and with extension, usually, you wanna share or whator what do you wanna do? With extension usually it hurts to do it without a towel.

So we have most people start with a towel.

– Yeah, so going back like this goes, ow, it hurts right about halfway back and oftentimes it may, if it goes down the arm, then you really knowyou've got a pinched nerve, that is pinching it more.

So what we're gonna do is, we'll start out with a little chin tuck, get the towel around the base, and get it so it's rolled up a little bit thicker, isusually comfortable at first.

And you can lean right back in the chair to relax your shoulders, chin tuck, and gently go back untilyou feel that pinch, and then come forward andyou can kinda pull forward, you're not pulling hard onthe towel, just support.

– [Bob] And Brad, you might actually, if you're in the samecase with me as I am, with the right arm, on the right pain, you might just use onearm to pull on the towel, and let this one relax.

– You could even.

.

.

– Yeah, and that's agood point by the way, this is another thing I want you to do, is throughout the day is, I want you to go ahead and puta pillow underneath your arm whenever you sit in a chair.

Under the arm on the painful side, because that can actuallyhelp, again, also take away, oh you can't even see that, there we go.

That'll help take awaythe stresses on the nerve as it's pulling on the neck.

– And as it goes furtherand further back.

.

.

– [Bob] Eventually youmight get to the point where you don't need the towel anymore.

But for most people, it seems that they needit to start off with.

– You wanna get here, Bob? And we'll show whathappens to the symptoms? – Yup, I'm gonna put thisback up again and flip it.

This is like old school, Brad and I used to do this all the time.

We used to not have a camera person when we first started off.

So, if the towel is working, the extension is working, you should start, what youwanna see is that the pain that's furthest away from your neck starts to be relieved first.

So if this resembles the pain, boom, gone, it's no longer in my hand, the numbness or the tingling, it's not necessarily just the pain, let's say the tingling even gets better.

You know, look for somethingthat's making it better.

Then the next step would be, hopefully, the pain's gonna go out of theupper-lower arm.

(chuckles) So you see now, now I'm nothaving any symptoms in my hand or my forearm, that's golden, that means you're doing the right thing.

Now those exercises, though, you must realize this, they aren't just done once a day.

You're doin' them like every hour, maybe five to eight times a day, 10 repetitions, y'know doing 10 times, and that's where you're gonnastart getting some results.

– And you have to continueto monitor your posture, no head forward posture, slipping sleeping pillow, no recliner with your headforward on a pillow behind it, those things have to be maintained.

– So the next thing would be, hopefully, as it starts to improve, youcan actually see the pain leave the upper arm, and.

.

.

– Why don't you turn so they can see this? Stand up.

(chuckles) – I don't know if I can stand up.

– 'Cause of it's cut your head off.

– Is there anything left? – Yeah, that's fine.

So right here, the pain'll be here, even as the pain'sgetting better in the arm, if it's starting to hurt a little bit more up by the shoulder andthe neck, that is okay.

As long as the pain is gonefrom further down the arm.

They call it centralizingMcKenzie technique, and as it gets better then, actually, it all the way goes away and you're feeling prettydarn good by this time.

– Now, if you find theextension gets to a point where it just doesn't seemto be helping anymore, the pain is kinda stuck, you then might try, you might try side-bending.

– Right, yep.

– So you might try, withreally good posture, Brad, do you wanna show to the side? We're gonna chin tuck, and then we're gonna sidewaysflex towards the side of pain.

So if the pain's on thisside, you're gonna chin tuck and go to that side.

Chin tuck, and go to thatside, and you're gonna see if that's gonna help take away the pain.

This is always an experiment, we're tryin' to figure outwhat it is as far as tips, and exercises, what takes away the pain, especially if it takesit away down here first, and then starts centralizing up so that you no longerhave it in the entire arm.

– So this one, you bend to side, that doesn't mean youshould grab and pull hard.

Just the movement is typicallyall you need to assess that.

– One thing I kinda forgot, Brad, is before you start extensions, you might just do some chintucks to start off with.

So Brad's showing it from the side, I'm showing it from the front.

Just this is kind of the warm up, and you can do these throughout the day.

One thing I'd forgotten is that, prior to doing the extension, you might wanna do some chin tucks.

Because that'll warm up the neck, and it's kinda putting theneck in the right position.

You're gonna go aheadand tuck the chin in, you're not going down, you're not going up, you're just bringing it straight back.

And these are ones you can doprior to doing the extensions, and it's also ones you cando throughout the day also.

So, that's the directional exercise, find out which one worksfor you and work with it.

Number three, you wanna avoidthe pain-makers in your life.

Any activities or any workthat increases your pain, you shouldn't be doing it.

A common one is peoplelooking at their phone.

And a lot of them have to do with posture, – Very much so.

– I mean if your posture's bad almost most of themhave to do with posture.

So you wanna go ahead, you wanna avoid this, you wanna make sure you havethe Tyrannosaurus Rex arms, and bring it right up to you.

You wanna avoid slouching in your chair while you're watching TV, and having the head forward like this.

You don't wanna drive withyour seat too reclined, 'cause it's gonna be the same thing again.

Yep, here look how yourhead's gonna go forward as you reach up to the wheel.

These are, pretty much anything, if you're having pain with it, like lifting a heavy object, don't do it right now.

You gotta get that pain to calm down.

The last thing I'm gonna mention is, we've covered a lot ofinformation here today, and we just touched uponit, and there's a lot more.

An excellent resource is Robin McKenzie's “Treat Your Own Neck.

” That's what everything wesaid today is based upon.

Just excellent books.

They're only like 10 bucks, aren't they? – Yeah, and they'rewritten for the lay-person, so you'll be able to understand it, follow along with what werecited here in the video.

It's a great source, and the price is good, you'll be happy that you purchased it.

– Yeah, you'll see that itactually has great reviews, I mean people all over theworld have used this, so.

Alright, remember, Brad and Ican fix just about anything.

– Except for.

.

.

– A broken heart.

– There you go, Bob, but we're workin' on it.

Even through this issue.

– Yep, alright, thanks.

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