Trapped nerve? Not as common as you think…

All pain that we feel is reported back to us through the nervous system. Whether it is a muscle, joint, ligament, disc, nerve, bone, blood vessel or anything else in the human body, it is the nervous system that tells us it is painful. The only true 'pain-free' tissue is the brain itself.

So it is a little unfair to blame every sharp or other type of pain on a 'trapped nerve' - don't shoot the messenger (the nerve) when it is not the problem.

'Trapped nerves' are not that common with probably only about 5% being the cause of limb pain. Even then, 95% will have had a preceding history of spinal pain before any limb pain develops. Sure, it is very convenient and dramatic to describe something as a 'trapped nerve', but often it is a quick diagnosis when someone has not done the hard work to find out the real problem.

A TRUE trapped nerve will give symptoms that include numbness, pins and needles and weakness. Bear in mind that this must be a TRUE weakness and not just weak because it is painful. These are very different considerations and very important to understand.

'Nerve pain' is quite specific. It will normally radiate along a leg or an arm as a 'flash' of pain, no wider than one or two centimetres and then it goes away just as quickly. If you compress the nerve for a period time you will tend to feel numbness, tingling or weakness rather than pain.

So what is the sharp pain that you feel when you move your neck or back? Well, if the pain is local to the spine and does not follow the above pattern it is by far and away most likely to be an acutely inflamed spinal joint, as nerve pain is very rarely confined to the spine.

The majority of limb pain is not due to 'trapped nerves' either. The biggest misnomer of all is when a diagnosis of 'sciatica' is made. 'Sciatica' just means, "pain somewhere in the back of the leg", which is not necessarily anything to do with the sciatic nerve itself being injured. The cause is usually very much musculo-skeletal or 'somatic', which can be caused by inflammation or swelling of a nerve or other structure, rather than a 'trapped sciatic nerve'.

Remember that there are many tissues within the body that can cause pain and a 'trapped nerve' is not always the most likely answer.

Reference: Clinical Anatomy of the Lumbar Spine by Bogduk.

Top

Copyright © Marc Jones - Osteopath (UK), Osteopathy Vancouver 2003 onwards