Why Does My Spine Hate Me?

March 18, 2013

Today, one of my patients asked me the same question that I have heard a thousand times before, “Hey Doc, how come you’re not treating my leg for the numbness in it?” Like every patient before him, I carefully explained that the reason I wasn’t doing any treatment to his leg for the numbness he was complaining of was because the problem in his leg was coming from a compressed nerve in his back…in his case, from a disc causing pressure on a nerve that runs down the leg. I told him that the disc was pushing out of its normal space like jelly leaking out from the center of a donut. Unfortunately, his “jelly” was nicking the nerve that causes function to his leg, which was resulting in numbness to his leg. I explained to him that ALL of my treatment would be geared at repositioning the bones in his back so that some of the “jelly” could slip back into its normal place and stop causing him to have numbness down his leg. Now he clearly understands why I am treating his spine and not his leg.