Back pain is better than leg pain.
Why this matters:
Yesterday I wrote about how you can measure progress. What is often overlooked is how your pain location changes. This means, how the pain travels up and down your leg/back. If the pain moves away from your back and down your leg it is called peripheralization. In this situation, we’re looking at a little more nerve irritation. That can happen at your back, hip, knee or ankle. The goal of your recovery when dealing with sciatica pain is to make the pain move up closer to your spine. This is called centralization.
Having the pain/symptoms move more centrally means that there is less nerve irritation. If you have a herniated disc, it is often believed that the disc is being less herniated (or reduced). If you’re dealing with arthritis, stenosis, spondylosis, that means there is less pinching on the nerve.
With centralization, you may experience more low back pain, but a reduction in your leg pain. As alarming as this is, we are still heading in the right direction. But, what if your back pain goes away, but you still have leg pain? This is still a positive signal (although we approach this with a little more caution).
Action steps:
Compare your pain location today versus yesterday. Did the pain move? If it moved up closer to your spine, this is a good sign. Try to replicate what you did yesterday. If the pain moved down your leg more, this is a sign of more irritation. Reflect on yesterday and see what you need to change.
If you need help trying to figure this out, book your free call with us today. We’ll spend 30 minutes figuring out a plan of action for you. The great news is that pain relief can be done in as little as 10 minutes a day.
