Full transcript of “How to Overcome Cervical Pinched Nerve & Radiculopathy (Don't Panic) - Dr. Alan Mandell, DC”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 hello and welcome everyone dr. Mandela here with you I hope you're having a pleasant day or night regardless of where you are welcome everyone today's topic is going to be a very special one because of the fact that the hundreds of thousands of people well as millions of people worldwide as well as the many thousands of subscribers that I have have neck related conditions the thousands of comments that I come across over time is just drastically high so many people who are suffering with these many types of conditions and hopefully today I'm going to be able to solve a lot of your problems we are streaming live right now as notifications are going out hello Cheddar's we are gonna teach you how to overcome pain in the
0:47 neck cervical ridiculous pinched nerve facet syndrome and let's get right through this real quick because I have a lot to be said and I don't want to bore anyone but this is really important stuff and I'm gonna kind of move for as quick as I can first thing I want to tell you is that this is a condition that stems from the nerves one way or another or the muscles I want you understand that most people who have neck pain and go to the doctor the neurologist of the Isaiah Trish the orthopedist or medical doctor the chiropractor the massage therapist the physical therapists right away when you start complaining a pain is go take the MRI so what do we have what do we do we get all panicky we start getting nervous we start getting anxiety oh my god what is what if something shows in
1:33 my MRI I'm gonna need surgery I'm not gonna be able to to have my trip with my kids or I'm not gonna be able to go out with my wife or my boyfriend or my whole life is gonna stop we go through anxiety so the first thing I'm gonna tell you is don't panic I honestly mean that because the worst thing we can do when we try to get well is panic anxiety kills us it makes the heart race it increases adrenaline and increases cortisol it causes muscle contracture and intensifies the pain it releases catecholamines from the brain doesn't induce in kapha lines and endorphins which are the natural opiates and painkillers it
2:19 just makes everything crazy and that's the worst thing we can do first of all when we have any kind of problem any pain I say to you in a very calm voice don't panic because you'll get through it understand that this amount of people this small percent of the people ever need surgery but I can tell you that majority of people who get surgery are people that are told they need surgery that really don't need it most of the time I can tell you in all the years I practice and I wish all you people that listen to this video can sit in my office and watch the hundreds and hundreds of people that have walked through my door thousands of people over the years and I can tell you that very
3:05 few of them ever needed anything significantly done of any invasive procedure and I've seen the worst of the herniated disc excluded disc sequestered disc because the body is a self coming organism and if you can sit this out the body can do remarkable things now I'll talk about that another program let's get right through this because I have a tendency to talk too much and this is really important stuff here's a pinched nerve this nerve is being inflamed and irritated by many things and you're saying well what is causing my pain I just want to let you know see my video on MRIs meaning that D MRIs don't panic because most people who see MRIs look at the findings and those findings of the MRIs do not correlate to the subjective and objective findings of what the
3:50 patient complains of so that means that even though you may have a herniated disc because there are millions of people out there who have herniated discs that don't know it and there are people who take MRIs that don't have hernia discs there are a lot of pain so we try to come with a foundation of an answer that there is no one answer for all but I'm gonna explain to you that a lot of the conditions that you're having or the pain that you're having is not coming from your herniated disc or even a pinched nerve you're saying how is that well let me show you so as you see here you have a nerves that come up the lower cervical spine brachial Plexus makes its way down if you have inflammation of the left is a disk herniation and yes disk herniation is can inflame there's it can cause pain on the nerves but disc herniation is in
4:36 many conditions resolved it may not totally resolved where it heals where it looks perfect but the inflammations off the nerve the body has remarkable capabilities of doing so if you ate it correctly and the number one reason why people don't get well with neck problems is poor posture forward head posture repetitive postural changes or are things that you do repetitively that aren't changed okay it could be occupation it could be the work the computer that your your posture around the house those things that need to be worked on are the things that will help these conditions along with some other which I'll explain in a few minutes okay so we have cervical disc herniation you can see to the left the c5 c6 bulge could affect the c6 nerve root and I'll
5:23 explain to you where these nerves go and how you can determine when you look at your arm or feel your arm your shoulder or your shoulder blade or a certain tear of your body where or what nerve is involved and the reason why I want to teach you this is because if you can objectively pinpoint a nerve which I'll explain in just a second see this c6 nerve I don't want jump the gun too fast but the c6 nerve can affect the biceps in other words if you're having tingling over here this little finger this is not your c6 nerve so I want to teach you what the anatomy is and how how it works the neurology so you can understand that because when you go to the doctor and
6:09 you're here you're saying well I have tangling and burning here and the MRI shows an MRI to a different level that level is not controlling this so you don't want to do anything to that level invasively because you're not gonna get better that's what I'm talking about that's what is the most important thing is you understand your body as good as I understand your body okay so this is one of the most what I say most what a very common condition scalene is syndrome thoracic outlet syndrome but not after it comes out of the brachial plexus right work comes out in the anterior and the medial skin leanness muscles now you think about poor posture forward head posture you think about stress you think about you know occupational stress is cumulative trauma
6:54 dysfunction human of trauma disorders and just the muscle contraction can cause compression irritation on the nerve so that's why I'm very big I love massage therapist I have several that work in our office because they can release contracting muscles they can stretch it they can break myofascial changes they can reduce scar tissue they could reduce adhesions in anyone out there who has not seen a massage therapist who's seen a neurologist opposed I assure as a medical doctor neurosurgeon go she go find a good massage therapist because when you break down that those adhesions and you may be saying you know I can only move my neck about so far but when those adhesions are released guess what I can move my neck totally the way I supposed to be
7:41 moving if you notice when you're driving you may be turning your whole body because you can't move your neck even if there's no pain so I want you to understand muscles play lots of funny games and they compress nerves and when those nerves become compressed it is painful and they can cause a radiation of different areas so that's very important dermatomes if you look at this right here this shows you the nerve roots what areas they control so in other words the fifth nerve root will control this area in my arm I know it's kind of hard to see but you can see the sixth nerve root goes all the way down to the first two fingers so in other words if you've got a herniated disc c5 c6 you're affecting a c6 nerve root but you're affecting that the little finger which is a c8 and a neurosurgeon says well we better go correct and fix that
8:28 herniation that herniation is not causing your problem you with me that is probably one of the the best educational tools that you you'll get from this video is that you can look to see the nerve root so when they say an MRI or an x-ray that you got DJ gjd or degenerative joint disease and you got a fourth or fifth nerve root but you're getting something over here they don't work together the puzzle doesn't fit so if the puzzle doesn't fit that's security for you don't do it don't do anything okay and I'll get to that in a second but there's three things I want to mention about her knee to disk or about pinched nerves or about anything pain of surgery one is the reflex gone two is
9:15 the motor strength that you have weakening or three is the area at refining or the bicep of the tricep the muscle is it getting smaller and smaller and smaller one of those threes or all or two or three of those are indications that maybe you need more of an invasive procedure but most people don't have that and even if you have some atrophy or loss of muscle by rehabbing it and allowing the body to recoup that muscle will grow most of the time again that's what I want you to edge that's what I want to educate you don't don't cheat don't give up don't don't hook your head down it's your body and once you're cut you're cut once whatever happens after
10:00 that is in God's hands so if it's not a hundred percent medically necessary which most of the time it's not don't rush into anything there's a lot of different things you can do for the body to repair and heal referred pain just shows you that you know people with Fassett problems what are for set problems well if you look at the back of the spine here normal C shaped curve yes I know the majority of this world have a straightening of the neck that's from poor posture and there's many other reasons don't panic I spoke to a young lady today and she's saying my neck is straight what can I do to get my curve back well your necks been straight maybe for 30 years for ten years you start not monkeying around with the body and start forcing something that mother nature accommodated or compensated a certain
10:47 way you're looking for potential problems the best my best answer for you is sustained what you have keep the good posture work on the partial exercises check out my videos I have hundreds many okay don't try to be a hero don't let the educated intelligence overtake innate intelligence the innate intelligence knows how to heal man doctors don't know how to heal their job is to help the body heal that's the way it should be done these are facet joints in the back and when these facet joints become arthritic or they become inflamed you can then get referred pain to these areas those shows you that shows you the level so a lot of people will get burning in the upper trap or below in the in the scapula area
11:34 that can just give you a general idea of rebirth pain referred problems so we have a lot of time spent a lot of time on these videos SCM see by SCM video really good a lot of people are having pain this is where it's coming from SCM trigger points in other words they're saying got pain over my head and paint up in the face you see those X's if I turn my head like this you see that big muscle stick out that's my SCM I sternocleidomastoid or steno clay toe mastoid whoever you want to call it but when you start hitting these certain areas okay you're gonna get referred pain to different areas okay so when those when those areas become trigger points because you may have a buildup of lactic acid in there you may have problems with in the
12:21 vascular circulation to the area and you start developing trigger points you touch those trigger points they can refer to different areas and then once you start working those trigger points the pain goes away here's another one more from the trap area you can see the referred pain in the area just want to bring it out to your attention here is another area well I got pain down my arm well guess what neurologist or the neurosurgeon or your chiropractor may say take an MRI because yeah we know that nerves we know that nerves like this can come down the arm of course it can't but if I take your head and I bring your head back and I push down or I bring it over and I push down or I extend straight
13:06 back I'm compressing nerves I'm what I'm doing here is that I'm taking this nerve right here this yellow nerve and I'm compressing over that area to make it smaller to make it more inflamed to make it more irritated so if you notice that you're moving your head back and the pain doesn't get worse aha trigger points muscle contraction that's the way the body works because I or you should be able to induce the pain okay there's a friend low compression test if you take your head over the area and push down okay you you you narrow that channel with that nerves coming out up called the intervertebral foramen if you narrow it and it doesn't increase the pain it's
13:53 not coming from that nerve most of the time okay so you need to understand that a lot of the pain can be coming from muscle spasm trigger points Fassett arthritis let's come up here we're almost done here's a trigger point there but when you have points in a certain area when they're good you got that noxious substance of acid buildup lactic acid and you got something that's maybe overworked or a muscle to overwork you develop trigger points you can get radiation of pain to a different area think about it if you're having heart problems it's a muscle you're getting pain in your left arm guess what that's referred pain you understand that so you could have paint you have a problem here and get pain in the jaw it's not coming
14:39 from the jaw may not come from the jaw you could have problems in the jaw and get referred pain back to the neck all right so this is what I want you to understand I need you to look at this thing multi-dimensional I need to look at this thing and look at is like a whole puzzle it's not like pain here so problem here it's not like pain here problem here you need to make sure where it's stemming from where it's coming from and this is why this is what good medicine good diagnosticians and you need to become a diagnostician somewhat even though I know you didn't go to medical school but you need to understand your body because if someone's gonna do it invasive procedure on you like an epidural or they're gonna want to do steroids so they're going to go
15:24 head and do something like ablation therapy or GRU who's discectomy or lemon ectomy last resort you better try everything and anything before you let anyone touch you this is just a chart here showing you the nerve roots what they affect for example the c5 is my deltoid okay so if I check the deltoid on you and I tell you to resist it I push down and I'm pushing and you're a sudden you can't hold it that's c5 weakness so I can relate that c5 right back to your disk okay if I check your bicep all right like this I said resist you can't hold it it's really weak I compare both sides that's c6 nerve oops so we can put the puzzle together and say okay that's c6 nerve root that the MRI showed us c6 and
16:11 you're having weakness in here and your reflexes are weak yes we have a complete diagnosis we know it's possibly coming from a disc from that nerve okay but if you're not having motor weakness even though you have a disc herniation where most people do not have motor weakness most people do not have motor motor weakness with disc herniation the majority so we want you to understand what's happening now tricep back here you know you do these these do these push them up okay or you push down like this you know doing your tricep exercises your tricep exercises c7 so if your tricep muscles are completely strong but you have a c7 irritation or a herniation around that area but your muscles are intact that's good so what we want to do is I
16:56 want you to understand that you need to understand these muscles that they're fine you're not having atrophy the reflexes are normal you're not surgical okay that's why I said to you before what I say to you before we started the program huh okay tell me what I said I said don't panic the worst thing we can do is panic they just tune in with us we don't want you to panic I want you to become educated I want you to become your best patient okay because no doctor is gonna care more about you than yourself no doctor is gonna knock at your door and say Ms Jones I was thinking about you all last night I woke up my middle and my night my sleep I just want to see how you're doing they're not gonna do those kind of things doctors are busy okay they're
17:43 doing their own thing if their mother or their family member yeah maybe they'll do that but they're not could do that for strangers this doesn't work that way okay so here I want to show you cervical disc degeneration a cervical disc degeneration when the disc degenerates it's thinner people are saying well you know stem-cell therapy you can fix the discs you can fix the degeneration can you fix up all tire I can't do it I will tell you and I'm not trying to get hopes down on people out there but understand you can't afford to wear things out in your body you just can't afford it you know you can put substitutes and in your teeth you can maybe do other things
18:29 but when it comes down to discs you need to take care of them because when they degenerate they're thin they lose fluid they're dehydrated the angular fibers are worn and torn like the outside that fray around a golf ball the body just doesn't thicken and make it thick again so I don't know where people get their news from but you may be hearing from other doctors on YouTube but I can tell you yes the body can do remarkable things the body can repair herniation the body can repair bulges but when it comes to disk desiccation okay it's not gonna get thick that got like a like it's like a thick marshmallow again so you need to take care of it now here's the other thing when I mentioned that's a bone spur can bone spurs reabsorb ya can earring an earring of discs get real
19:15 thick again if they can you're not gonna see many I'll never say never because I don't know everything okay I only know what I've seen okay so what's happening in that disc if you look at it it's thin and when it's thin the space where the nerve comes out becomes smaller so what happens is everything gets closer together so that nerve is potentially becoming more involved and irritated okay and this degeneration and osteoarthritis and spurs all stem from one primary thing right here poor posture poor posture way to the head being 12 pounds every inch ago for it's an additional 10 pounds this just shows you two inches forward to be 32 pounds of
20:02 stress three inches forward 42 pounds of stress and more than that you know it goes up to 60 70 80 pounds the head is weight and if you just do this all day and the worst of the worst of the worst are the children the young adults because of the smartphone its routing people it's distracting people if you're watching this today come back to this video five years from now you're gonna see how many comments are gonna be there because there are so many people at rooting themself today that you're seeing young kids 18 years old 19 years old with dowager's hump hunching god I wish I could just pull up my phone and
20:47 show you some pictures it's it's it's it's heart-wrenching when when the when the mothers send me the pictures of their daughter other children young children that look like they have 40 year old spines they're 12 years old 15 years old from doing this so please be smart about your children everything else get that phone that iPad up tuck that chin in do these chin tucks okay just like this like chin tucks you can look at my channel got so much there to share with you this is all about education and this is gonna be the epidemic not the influenza this is going to be worse than the influenza I hate to
21:35 tell you that but it will why you got Samsung you got Apple you got the Nokia you got all these huge multi-million dollar companies selling you all this innovative computer technology the technology is ruining people's health I hope that you really take this seriously and I hope there are producers out there I hope that there are networks out there that see this video because we really need to educate the people out there it's so important I hope that you enjoyed this video and I really hope that this gives you a little insight now you're saying well what do I do well I'm gonna give you a few tips when
22:22 you have degeneration number one posture inflammation ice is always good moist heat is good I like it I'll even like infrared you can get infrared therapy twenty thirty dollars on Amazon infrared therapies light therapy great for degeneration great for arthritis great for bursitis if it's tendinitis in the shoulder bursitis in the shoulder in there in the elbow carpal tunnel syndrome it's real good moist heat is very good moist heat penetrates more cervical over-the-door traction and see my video on that Sara pep tastes a great enzyme right here okay I'm not trying to sell this to anyone this is what I use right here I'll put it in front the camera okay there's different ones I take one hundred twenty thousand SPU
23:07 once or twice a day this eats up the scar tissue I have disc herniation is I've had issues in the past and the reason why not too many people know more than me because I had to do my homework I've been to neurosurgeons in the past I've had brachial plexus involvement in the past okay but I'm strong and I'm a persevere and people who follow me you're gonna be strong too because there's nothing more important to to never underestimate the power of what the body can do but you have to help it you can't take a Bible and you cannot go ahead and start praying and say okay please get me well you got to take action you got it you would be proactive you come out there look at my
23:53 videos you come out there and go ask questions you go out and look at other information you read through the internet you start doing smart things so getting back to Sarah pet day see my see my video actually I'll post it below on Sarah pep days you should look at that I'll post it below um tumeric excellent inflammatory Khurshid an excellent ginger excellent Boz way Leah with frankincense excellent apple cider vinegar great for spurs cleansing the body detoxifying great for even an acid reflux people say well why put that in my system if I already have acid it works but the key thing right now is
24:38 that when it comes down to healing one of the greatest things I can tell you is one thing cut the sugar out you can go to the best doctors eat the best foods but if you're eating lots of sugar you're having a lot of inflammation you got to cut the inflammation down when you start cutting the sugar down I'm not tell you not to eat sugar but cut it down when you start cutting the sugar down you are going to really see miracles of healing okay there's no magic when it comes to healing you just have to allow the body to be in the right environment and when you have sugar its acidic and that acidity causes inflammation and that inflammation affects all the cells in your body so
25:24 that's really important I've done videos on sugars and I really need to do more because I need to kind of brainwash people that you know that it's not only cause of causing you know diabetes and heart disease and in cardiovascular and all the kinds of conditions but understand when our body becomes acidic we got bacteria viruses they're more more prone to over overwhelm our system our immune system but when we become more alkaline we have a lot more resistance we have a lot more to fight we have a lot less inflammation and understand before I just make way there is nothing better than having an alkaline environment in your body it will help you heal I promise you many blessings to all of you I really hope that this video does
26:11 you well I ask you to please subscribe to my channel I hope that you will benefit so you can get further notifications in the future check me out motivational doc on Facebook I appreciate any reviews you can leave me over there you can ask questions over there as well leave your comments below there are going to be hundreds of people that will probably respond to this this is a huge topic and commonly overseen worldwide particularly out in Asia and Africa and throughout many parts of the world Iran Iraq they just don't have the type of medicine and there are people out there don't have money and finances so the purpose of these videos is to help as many millions of people as we can ask you to shoot us into social media that's all I can say
26:58 blessings to everyone and may God continue to bless you and stay well in good health and continue to stay proactive and we'll see you next time bye bye
