"J", a 36 year old African American male and former college basketball player, presented in my office with severe sciatica, rated 9/10, after an accident at work three nights before. He had been driving a front-end loader around the warehouse where he works, and ended up driving it into a 3 foot ditch because of poor visibility. Immediately after this sudden drop and jolt, he felt severe pain shooting from his low back all the way down his right leg to his big toe, and from that point on, he was unable to walk upright at all. He got no relief from sitting, lying down, OTC meds, or the Lortabs prescribed by the company medical doctor. He was set to see an orthopedist in three weeks (!) as the worker's comp process dictated, but "J" decided to come see me first as I had previously helped him get rid of his migraines.
Upon chiropractic, orthopedic and neurological examination, "J" had all the "usual" positive findings of sciatica-- twisted/posterior L5 on X-ray, extreme tenderness, edema and heat in lumbosacral junction, decreased sensation in calf area, positive straight leg raiser test, positive Braggard's, Valsalva's and Kemp's Tests, absent Achilles DTR, inability to squat and rise, etc-- all in all, it was certainly not looking good for his L5/S1 disc.
Now I am certainly not squeamish at all about adjusting around hot discs-- I do it all the time, although carefully and specifically, mind you-- but I knew I better do something to quiet this down first before I go jumping on L5 from P to A with the drop piece. Soooo, I placed some SOT blocks under his hips to to elevate the pelvis slightly, and began to palpate for the L5 cranial reflex point on the top of his head. I immediately found a relatively massive depression in the space between the L5 and the S1 reflex points (the disc point?!?!) which was extremely tender to even a light touch. I pulled out my trusty pocket red laser (200mW) and began to light up this spot.
After a few seconds, his breathing slowed down significantly and I could see that the lower back muscles were not guarding nearly as much. After half a minute or so, I stopped, re-palpated the cranial depression, and "J" reported that the tenderness was about 50% better. I rechecked his lumbar spine for tenderness over L5, and he reported this was also about 50% better. Not bad for 30 seconds. So I went back to lasering the L5 point, but on a hunch, I switched to my 30mW green laser for its calming effect. Another 30 seconds of this, and then some quick passes on the gastroc, soleus, psoas and QL cranial reflex pathways for another 30 seconds,... and I got him up on his feet.
It was obvious something was different. For one, he was smiling. For another, he was able to stand fully upright, not bent over at the waist anymore. On his own, he squatted down and came up instantly. This too was very different than before. He actually jumped in the air a couple of times, landing on his toes. "Hold on there, fella. Just wait a second before you go doing all that..." I said. "But the pain is gone, Doc."
"Gone?" I was a little surprised... I mean I knew it would work, I just didn't know how well.
"Well 90% anyways." He reported all the sensation had returned in his legs and feet and now just his low back was "a little sore." I had him walk around the office for a bit to see if it quickly returned. It did not.
So I got him back on the table, rechecked all the ortho/neuro tests, which were now negative, gave him some easy adjustments with the drop table (mostly out of habit) and sent him on his way. When I saw him again in 3 days, he reported remaining about 90% better. I monitored him twice a week for the next 3 weeks and even with his 12 hour shifts of heavy lifting in the warehouse, he only reported some soreness and stiffness in his low back through this period--no sciatica, radiculopathy or neurological symptoms of any kind. And "J" had missed only one day of work.
A few days after his appointment with the orthopedist, I got a sciatica referral from that group.
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