You’ve Got Some Nerve!

Nerves are imperative in how the human body functions.  Move a muscle? That signal was sent along your nerves. Feel the rough grip on a barbell? You guessed it, that signal is sent along your nerves as well. 

Let’s rewind to high school biology, but just for a second. Your brain and spinal cord make up your central nervous system.  This is the control center for you body. Your central nervous system transmits this information to the rest of your body via electrical signals sent along nerves, which are part of the peripheral nervous system. 

Just like muscles or bones, nerves can also be a source of pain. Putting traumatic injury and surgery aside, nerves can get flared up on occasion with regular daily occurrences.  Maybe it’s from an awkward movement that happened in the gym, inappropriately progressing the amount of weight you lifted, or helping a friend move into their new apartment (with way too much furniture to justify them only treating you to a slice of pizza).  

Nerve pain can feel very scary. You may notice numbness, tingling, or a strong shooting pain.  Sometimes it may even lead to weakness in a specific muscle group.  While this is certainly disconcerting, there is a lot that can be done to treat it.  It can be trickier than some other common injuries, so it’s a good idea to find a physical therapist to guide you through it.

First, we want to make sure that there are no red flag symptoms.  Some examples are bowel and bladder changes, saddle anesthesia, or difficulty walking.  Then we want to figure out the source of the problem.  Does it seem to be coming from your spine, or somewhere else further down the distribution of the nerve?  Is it affecting strength or sensation?

Once we determine the source of the problem, it’s time to get to work.  Nerves need blood flow, movement, and space.  By getting your nerves moving, we can help them meet their needs and decrease symptoms. These exercises look different from your typical stretches.  In fact, static stretching usually isn’t the answer.  Instead, gliding the nerve back and forth while turning the symptoms on/off usually works better. It’s okay to reproduce the nerve symptoms, but you should be able to quickly turn those symptoms on and off with the nerve glide.  

Nerve pain can be tricky without proper understanding of how nerves move and function.  For example, the location of where you feel the symptoms is important in knowing if your symptoms are improving or worsening.  If the pain centralizes towards the source, that is a sign of improvement, even if the intensity remains unchanged or worsens slightly.  If the pain peripheralizes further away from the spine, that is a sign the symptoms are becoming more aggravated, even if those new symptoms are less intense.  If you were having 3/10 pain in your calf and went out for a walk and now have no calf pain but a 4/10 pain in your back, that is actually a good thing!  Contrary to that if you were having 3/10 pain in your calf and went out for a walk and now have 1/10 pain in your toes, that shows the walk is currently aggravating your symptoms and we need to try something else. 

While nerve pain can be very disconcerting, hopefully having a better understanding of it will help you know what to look out for and when to seek professional help.  In general, catching this early on will be easier to treat and get you back to the activities you love quicker.  If you’re struggling with anything that sounds like this, reach out to ezra@shorestrengthpt.com.