Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcast. I do these in the hopes that you can better educate yourself on these topics which will allow you to make a better informed decision about your health care. I am doctor Harrison Campbell of Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. For tonight’s podcasts we will be discussing neuralgia. Now we have previously discussed neuralgia in relation to disc herniations but we will focus primarily on the nerve for this podcast.
To start tonight we will briefly discuss the nervous system then dive deep into the condition know as neuralgia. As sugar land chiropractors know there are tow main parts to the nervous system. There is the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is composed of the brain and spinal cord. These are the main processing center, meaning the brain, and the main communication line, meaning the spinal cord. The brain is most people are aware of controls the actions of the body from thought and memory to muscle movements and sensation. The spinal cord relays impulses or signal from the brain to the body and sent information that has been gathered by the nerve ending.
The peripheral nervous system is the nerve roots and the nerves which travel throughout the body to each receptor or nerve ending. These could be on organs to control function, receptors for tough or pain, to controlling muscles. This peripheral nervous system is where the condition of neuralgia comes into play. As sugar land chiropractors know the term neuralgia is simply nerve pain. Algia is the ending for pain and neuro is the term for nerve tissue or the nervous system. You combine both those terms and you get the diagnosis neuralgia.
In the previous podcast we discussed disc herniations irritating the nerve root creating radicular symptoms. In this situation the nerve root is the starting point of this injury and the nerve undergoes a physiologic change due to the pressure placed on it. Most people assume when a disc herniation impinges on a nerve there is physical contact and the disc is crushing the nerve. As sugar land chiropractors know this is usually not the case though it does happen in rare circumstances. Typically the disc injury creates inflammation which applies a pressure to the nerve. Nerves are very sensitive and thus become irritated due to this pressure. Once a nerve is irritated you get neurological symptoms or the previously mention radicular symptoms.
These symptoms range from the pins and needles sensation people know when an extremity is going to sleep, to numbness and tingling, to just numbness where there is no sensation what so ever to loss of muscle control. Naturally these are all symptoms which people would wish to avoid.
Now sugar land chiropractors also know that a disc herniation is not the only means to have neuralgia. As we said before neuralgia it its most basic is nerve pain. Nerve pain can be created anytime the nerve is irritated. Perhaps the most famous neuralgia is the funny bone. Many people know that striking the elbow can create shock like symptom in the arm that runs to the hand. The reason for this is the ulnar nerve runs very close to the skin at the back of the elbow. This allows the nerve to very easily be struck which produces that instant irritation to the nerve. The resulting symptoms fall along the radicular symptoms we describe earlier, they are just on a smaller less severe scale.
Additionally neuralgia can occur from a muscle. The most common scenario for this type of neuralgia is what sugar land chiropractors call piriformis syndrome. To explain this condition a little background is needed in anatomy. The sciatic nerve runs from the lumbar spine or low back down the glute and continues down the back of the thigh. During this trip down the glute the sciatic nerve passes through the piriformis muscle. Now normally there is no problems and the nerve can happily exist traveling through this muscle. Unfortunately what can occur is a spasm in this muscle or chronic tightening due to prolong postures or even prolong sitting on an object. Once this occurs the piriformis muscle irritates the nerve created the radicular symptoms and resulting in neuralgia.
This condition was extremely common in people who utilized chewing tobacco. They would sit on the can of snuff and it would irritate the sciatic nerve. Now days it is more common for men to be sitting on their wallet producing an irritation for the nerve and creating the piriformis syndrome.
A final means in which neuralgia can be produced in the body is the rare event we discussed previously the actual impingement of the nerve. Now sugar land chiropractors know that impingement is a rare occurrence especially when discussing nerve roots. However, there is degeneration in the spine which can create bone growth. This bone growth can and does physically impact the nerve in some cases. THE solution in this case is to remove the offending bone through a process called a where they open the foramen the root root travels through. Often times you will hear people refer to it as a bone spur that is causing the impingement. This is the excess bone growth we are discussing here.
I hope you found the causes of neuralgia informative. Unfortunately, we are out of time for tonight so we will have to break down the nerve component of neuralgia in tomorrow’s podcast. I hope to see you there. Thank you for joining us once again for our great nightly podcast. I hope you found this information on nerves and neuralgia enlightening and informative. Should you or someone you know be suffering from neuralgia please call Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office a call today in order to schedule an appointment. I hope to see you tomorrow for our next podcast. Thank you and have a good night.