I think I have pinched nerve on my right side. It is sort of painful to stride, sneeze, or cough, from the right side of my lower back to just behind my right knee. So I just have to take small steps and cough carefully. I have found no way around sneezing. (I happen to have a cold which could be considered bad luck.)
So I asked my coworkers what I should do since they are not used to me mincing around the office coughing like a sick kitten. Each of them suggested I go to a different professional; masseur, chiropracter, and neurologist were all suggested.
Anyway, I gave up and made an appointment with my general practitioner for next Tuesday. I’m sure I’ll be getting the professional answer in a few days but maybe you’ll indulge my impatience. It’s kind of annoying to go to one doctor just so he can tell you to go somewhere else, but I like my GP and visits are reasonably priced. One the one hand I’m hoping he can cure it without a referral to a specialist, but on the other hand I’m worried that he’ll just prescribe some pain medication and tell me to wait it out.
Who would you go to with these symptoms?
What would a doctor do if there was a problem he believed would go away on its own, but another profession believed should be dealt with by intervention? I mean, chiropracty is a different philosophy from ordinary medicine, right? What if one school says pinched nerves are dealt with directly and another says you just have to mince for a few weeks? Do MDs commonly refer people to alternative practitioners?
Your best bet would probably be an osteopath. They are trained very much like M.D.s and do residency training in regular hospitals but are also well trained in skeletal manipulation. Doctors of osteopathy are much safer than chiropractors because of extensive medical training which makes them much less likely to perform an inappropriate manipulation. Chiropractors vary widely in quality and many have an ideological axe to grind.
I am a nurse and I once worked with an osteopath in my hospital. He was a very popular guy with the nurses and doctors. We would all turn to him for quick fixes when our backs acted up like yours. BTW, his specialty was psychiatry.
That kind of pain sounds like sciatica, which is caused by damage to the sciatic nerve, a huge nerve that runs pretty much the same course as your pain. I think seeing your G.P. is the best place to start. Sciatica is common enough to have websites for sufferers. Look at http://www.sciatica.org.
My practicioner explains it as “opposite to chiropractic,” in that chiropractic manipulates the bones to being the body into alignment. Neuromuscular therapy stimulates the soft tissue, which brings the bones and everything else into alignment.
In my particular case, I had a chronic lower back thing. She diagnosed me with a super-tight muscle that was throwing everything out of whack. Over the course of a few sessions, she poked and prodded me and caused me great pain, and my back hasn’t hurt since. (3+ years.)
I don’t know if your doctor would recommend this–depends how open he is to alternative therapies. And many doctors don’t even know about alternative therapies.
But if you choose to look into this, most NMTs are considered “physical therapists” and will be paid for by insurance.
I’d look into massage in any case. Another friend (a regular massage therapist) cured my chronic shoulder problem with 10 minutes of on-the-fly manipulation. Wow!
While sciatica is a likely possibility, there are a few other things in the differential diagnosis, include pain from your L4-L5 spine, your hip; less likely a pleuritis.
This sort of pain can be excruciating but usually settles down. I would think a G.P. or osteopath would be able to help your problem. Since exercises can help with this sort of pain, you may wish to see a physiotherapist. But to answer your question, professionals that see pinched nerves also include massage therapists, chiropractors, anesthesiologists, orthopedic surgeons, rheumatologists and physiatrists. I would assure you that this pain is pretty common and would say a D.O. or G.P.
I went to my accountant’s office and he said he had a pinched nerve. I said “If I were you, I’d take the day off.” He replied “Oh, I’ll make it, but I think I will go to a neuromuscular therapist if it doesn’t get better tomorrow.” The next day I called his office and his secretary said he had gone to the doctor.
The moral of that story is that my accountant was a professional working with a pinched nerve. His doctor was a professional that works on pinched nerves.
Don’t jump the gun on finding a specialist before you go to the regular doctor.
A few weeks back I developed a similar pain in my right lower back/leg, and i thought it was sciatica (sp?) because i have it in my left leg. It ended up being a pulled butt muscle, which I believe i got from one night of having a few coughing fits. I went to my GP and saw his intern-like partner and she poked me in a few places, asked some q’s, and then gave me some Vioxx. My excruciating pain was gone in a few hours (after a week of assuming it was a pinched nerve).
Hey everybody, thanks for the answers. I guess I am a little gladder that I have made my appointment and a little less disappointed that I didn’t take a guess at a specialty. Other people in the office have mentioned sciatica so it sounds familiar. The pain is lessening slowly day by day so I have high hopes that I won’t be walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame forever.
Well, it is textbook sciatica. My doctor said he wished he had a medical student there because the case was so classic.
He prescribed two anti-inflammatories (prednisone, a steroid, and another one which is the same stuff that’s in Aleve). He also gave me a backup prescription of hydrocodone. He recommend some leg-raising exercises as well.
If it doesn’t get better in two weeks he told me to call him and he’ll refer a physical therapist.
That’s all very well and good, but I am strangely disappointed. A small, naive part of me figured he was going to push on my backbone in some very important place and the pain was going to go away instantly. Alas, I’ll have to stick to non-magic remedies.
Make sure you do your exercises! I ruptured a disk while loading crates in the Navy and my left leg muscles degenerated to twigs while I was incapacitated. After surgery I developed fibrosis on the nerve root and now after a year of agonizing physical therapy I can walk fairly normally. The point is, if I had exercised regularly (stretching, bending, walking), even with the pain, I would have saved myself alot of trouble down the road! Trust me, chronic pain is no fun!
