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[Jezta]

...I'm assuming all you seasoned "I have f*cked up muscles and nerves" people have tried the tennis ball trick, then? (Nearly started writing a book about that, Blatman... and I'm still tempted to...)

[waynem]

Please enlighten us

Do you lie on it or summat ?

As another long term back/sciatic pain sufferer I'll try anything when it flares up..

I currently use one of those inversion table thingies. Seems to ease the pain if you use it regularly, but don't us it after having a slap up tea....

Wayne M

[lespaul]

Get well soon.

I've displaced a disk according to the doc    so you have my sympathy as I know how much pain your back can give you.

Been told lying around all day isn't the answer anymore though so pain killers and back to work for me  

Darren

[neilwillis]

Get well soon Roland.

[Blatman]

Please enlighten us

Do you lie on it or summat ?

As another long term back/sciatic pain sufferer I'll try anything when it flares up..

I currently use one of those inversion table thingies. Seems to ease the pain if you use it regularly, but don't us it after having a slap up tea....

Wayne M

Very much depends on the root (soory) cause of the pain. Mine is/was a prolapsed disc at L4/5.

Many folk (especially the "alternative" healers) will say it's a muscle spasm or some other sort of deep muscle issue, and it may well be, but what is causing the spasm? Muscles just don't contract and cause pain for no reason. Find the actual cause of the pain, not just the symptom, then get it treated...

[Jezta]

I'm not a doctor, nor physician, nor chiropractor, nor any other kind of medical professional.. so take this with a pinch, or bucket, of salt at your discretion, and if you end up with worse problems then (with the best will in the world) it's your problem not mine. *A***-covered*.

I screwed up just about every muscle in my body (long story) for which I've had 4 years of muscle therapy(broken into stages), by a specialist who works with professional basketball players and american footballers. So, to say I know far too much about muscles and joints for someone who ISN'T a doctor, wouldn't be unfair. Below is a combination of being worked on by various professionals, and my own regime to help keep my muscles in good shape.

If your joints are f*cked, then this isn't for you - go see a chiropractor and start taking Vitamin E, glucosamine and chondroitin by the handful  

If you don't have *damaged* nerves (and I do mean.. *DAMAGED*) but suffer from trapped nerves, fatigued or sore muscles, then this could be for you.

Over time, we actually do fairly hideous things to our muscles, even if you're a keep-fit freak. You only have to fall on your A*** and smush your muscles, and what you can end up with is a small piece of "dead" muscle tissue. In some instances, that dead tissue might get re-cycled by the body, but in a lot of instances it'll get calcified and encased so that it doesn't become a toxin for the body. Also, what you end up with is also a "scar" in the muscle. Point i'm getting at, is that you don't need a very large selection of these little misdemeanours to end up with an area of muscle which gives you trouble, or indeed, catches nerves (such as sciatic nerve problems). In the case of of the sciatic nerve, it gets caught by the muscle, or indeed up against the bone, or any other weird and wacky placement resulting in pain and discomfort. However.. how can a nerve be squeezed by a perfectly normal muscle? Muscle is soft tissue - *when relaxed* you can squeeze it, push it, prod it, poke it.. in fact, for the most part you should be able to push your fingers into  your muscle sufficiently that you can almost touch the bone, without hurting yourself or giving yourself any discomfort at all (the muscle will simply "part" out of the way, because it consists of long strands of tissue which easily move apart (even if you're a body builder and have huge muscles)..... when in good health..).

To my knowledge (and the knowledge of my own professional masseuse), one of the only really effective ways of getting rid of problems of this nature, is to see a Deep Tissue Masseuse/Masseur. When you exercise, sure, you can break down muscle very well so that new, fresh, muscle grows in its stead. But..  you can't dump scar tissue or calcificied lumps of old/dead tissue, with exercise. It's also exceedingly difficult to unwind your muscles (remove "knots") with exercise.

(Bear with me.. I am getting there ;-) )

So what does a Deep Tissue Masseuse/Masseur do? THEY HURT YOU TILL YOU CRY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL!. Yes, they really do (or, the best ones do, anyway    ). You hop on the table for what you think is going to be a nice relaxing massage, and they're soon slathering you with tiger balm and driving their elbows through the fibers of your muscles like a farmer ploughing a field. Afterwards, with your skin on fire and your muscles throbbing like you just benched three times your own bodyweight, you actually feel an awful lot better (next day can be a bit harsh..). However, a series of these treatments results in all the calcified toxins, knots, and scar tissue being completely broken down and re-absorbed/passed by the body. Once you no longer have all these bits of crap floating around amongst the good muscle fibre, and the fibres are all straight and nice, things like trapped nerves and sciatic problems disappear to yesteryear. (Put your hand up if you ever get dead leg(s) when you're sitting on the loo..    )

So.. how does this relate to tennis balls? Deep tissue massage doesn't come cheap, and like I said, it's also a *very* painful experience (the most painful experience I've undergone). Instead, however, you can do what a deep tissue masseuse/masseur does with nothing but a sock and a pair of tennis balls. In the case of your A*** muscle, only one ball is required. (Don't be so rude!   )

Essentially, you lay on the floor, place the tennis ball under the offending muscle, and lean all your body weight on it. If it hurts like a b***h then you're doing it right (but try not to do it so hard that you pass out - otherwise you're likely to slide off the balls and waste your time being asleep). Because your bum is such a large muscle you'll need to move the ball around, and lean back on it several times. At first (if you have muscular/sciatic nerve issues) you may experience sharp, unbearable, pains. With that in mind, you just have to go gentle (but as hard as you can).. eventually, after a minute or two, the muscles will start to give-way around the tennis ball (and if you stop being such a girl, relax, and concentrate on the muscle, you'll FEEL it starting to part around the balls profile), and you'll be able to put more weight onto it. I would normally spend about ten minutes working EACH side of my butt, just rolling onto the ball and letting myself relax onto it. After a while (or maybe two or three sessions) you'll find that you can put more and more weight onto it, or you can even bend the leg of the side you're leaning on, to provide a fresh "side" for the ball to be pressed into.

Most "back" trouble derives from the hips, tops of the buttocks and the base of the spine. Hips out of alignment is what can often bring on a terrible bad back. To find out if your hips are out of alignment, lay on the bed or floor (no shoes or socks on) - have someone stand at your feet and a) check to see that the tops of your hips LOOK like they're level, and also b) pick up both of your legs (hand around the backs of your angles), and swing both legs (held together, straight) from left to right a couple of times, in the air - once they've been swung back and forth a couple of times, put them back down so they're perfectly straight with the body; if one leg looks longer than the other, then your hips are likely out (go see a chiropractor)... or you do actually have one leg longer than the other (see a doctor    ). It's not uncommon for one of my legs to be an inch longer than the other if my hips are out, so don't be too alarmed if you do find a discrepancy.

Using the tennis ball technique, above, on the "top" of your buttocks (right where your A*** and your back "join") is a good way to start.

To treat the muscles up the sides of your spine, put both tennis balls in a sock and tie the open end off. With the tennis balls in the sock, use your fingers to manipulate them so they're approximately half an inch to an inch apart (say, about as wide as the "ridges" down the back of your spine seem to be    ). Now, you can literally lay on the floor and slide the tennis balls (in the sock) underneath you, placing them so that the spine sits in the "valley" in between the tennis balls, and the tennis balls themselves are pressing into the muscles either side of your spine. I start from "just above my bum" and work my way up, all the way up to where spine turns into neck (avoid necks, people.. leave that to properly qualified individuals who know what they're doing.. such as chiropractors). The idea is to let your body weight do the work for you (just lay down on the balls), then you can pull your legs up to put more weight onto the balls if needs be.

If you get zero pain and zero discomfort from laying on tennis balls, then move on to the next area/muscle.

Using the methods above, I treat myself between masseuse sessions, and I've now learned how to massage just about every muscle in my body using nothing but tennis balls.

Those with sciatic problems - it's "likely" that the day after sitting on your tennis balls (and weeping like a small child who just had their sweets taken away), that the nerve will be slightly tender (you did, after all, just mush up all the bits of debrit and knotted muscle tissue up, around it.. which means they will have rubbed against it and such) - however, subsequent days will normally be MUCH more pleasant (and, even better than suffering from sciatic nerve problems on a normal day!).

There are those who will disagree, there are those who will not try it because they think it's dangerous (and to each their own.. I'm not preaching to them). Well.. it's just a tennis ball. I've started using a cricket ball and the results are quite exciting (less "give").. I wouldnt recommend anyone else using anything harder than a tennis ball unless they really know what they're doing with it and have had tried and tested results over a good period of time with the tennis balls.

Either way, I know this technique has worked for a lot of people, so it's another avenue to look at, especially for sciatic sufferers. If you want to feel a very defined "Oh yeah, this actually works!" sensation, then do just one butt cheek, remove the ball from under your butt, and lay flat on the floor. You'll instantly know what I'm refering to!

Apologies for the "glossiness" of this, too.. like I said, I could write a whole book on the topic in order to be completely thorough. If anyones really that interested, or they find it works for them, I can whizz up some more info and some sketches.

Incidentally, I recall a documentary about a guy in his late 40's or early 50's who went through a series of Deep Tissue massages. It was noted that although it was so painful he nearly passed out, after a few treatments he was bouncing around like someone 20 years younger.

So there ya go.. that's the Tennis Ball thing.   I hope it helps one or two folk (even the skeptics) with their sciatic problems - if it doesn't, then I certainly don't envy you your problems  

[Jezta]

Very much depends on the root (soory) cause of the pain. Mine is/was a prolapsed disc at L4/5.

Many folk (especially the "alternative" healers) will say it's a muscle spasm or some other sort of deep muscle issue, and it may well be, but what is causing the spasm? Muscles just don't contract and cause pain for no reason. Find the actual cause of the pain, not just the symptom, then get it treated...

...yup.. one of the things that using a tennis ball or a deep tissue masseuse will do nothing for (except cause you MORE unnecessary pain).

As for the rest of your comment, it seems to go round in a circle  

[Jezta]

To answer blatmans comment a little more thoroughly (as he is actually right);

Muscles and bones can indeed end up being a circular process of misery. There is always a cause for why a muscle hurts or is inflammed and sore. Only problem is, often that cause becomes detached from the symptom.

For example, walk around with your hips out of alignment for a couple of years (which is what happened to me after an industrial accident). Your body is a very clever thing, and will endevour to make up for what it's lacking elsewhere. So, if your hips are out (and therefore one leg is longer than the other), your whole body will "lean" in the direction of the shorter leg. But, your brain/body will take-over and attempt to keep you "upright". This in turn can cause all kinds of bizarre effects on your spine (I ended up with an unfavourable s-curve, from left to right, up my spine).

So you might say "a quick trip to the chiropractor will solve that", and indeed it does.. your spine is now straight and your hips are all in alignment.

However.. all that time that you spent with your bones out, and your muscles taking up the slack to keep you upright, means that the muscles surrounding the bones are no longer symetrical (or close to) on each side of your body; you'll have some muscles which are longer, or shorter. This, in turn, can result in the bones being pulled back OUT of alignment (in the worst cases). Even worse than that, if it goes on too long, the muscles taking up the slack become so fatigued from all that effort and mis-use, that other muscles either side lend a hand to try to alleviate the problem... which in turn ends up being part of the problem as well.

Either way.. that's an example of how the source of the problem can become completely detached from the resulting muscular problems, and starting a circular mode of misery.

This is also why physio therapists (who, I hasten to add, aren't considered "alternative" therapists, when deep tissue massage and chiropractors are) like to make sure you get plenty of weird and wacky stretching exercises, when you've done something like broken your ankle/elbow/shoulder etc - the exercises you undergo are designed to a) keep the joint moving b) ensure that the muscles not only don't suffer from dis-use, but also to keep the fibres in good shape (e.g. not of disproportionate lengths, giving you poor movement in/around that joint)

[Norman Verona]

I know not what you speak of.

BUT. Many years ago I drove from Carlisle to home (Essex) with the window open and got a back problem. Can't remember what it's called but it was fibrous knots which left me bent double. The doctor gave me pain killers and said, even though he said he shouldn't, that I should see a physio. Lynnes uncle knew the, then, physio for West Ham FC and got me to see him. I went to his house and was put on a table, my back was massaged and it was painfull but I walked out standing erect and have had no problems since. That was 35 years ago.

[Jezta]

...that's Deep Tissue Massage, nverona.