Nerve Pain & Trapped Nerves in Southend-on-Sea & Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

We offer advice and treatment for nerve pain and trapped nerves in Southend-on-Sea at The Body Matters. Treatments are available from our clinic based in Leigh-on-Sea, Southend, Essex. We also offer telephone & online support and remote consultations. Call us on 01702 714968 for more information.

What causes nerve pain?

Nerves can be tricky structures. By nature, they are sensitive tissues but they are actually pretty durable. Life throws a fair amount of physical stress upon them and they need to endure periods of stretch and compression as well as periods of reduced blood flow, known as ischaemia.

Ischaemia causes a potential compromise as blood flow carries the nutrients that our tissues need to function. Dysfunction in the nerve results in symptoms of motor loss (muscle weakness) and sensory disturbances such as pins and needles or other odd sensations and can even be numbness (anaesthesia) similar to when you get a local anaesthetic at the dentist.

Provided the nerve isn’t partially or fully severed then there is no reason why it cannot return to normal function when the region of compression that is causing the ischaemia is identified.

What causes nerve compression?

Often, nerve compression will occur around a region where something can press on or impinge the nerve. This could be around a joint where there is swelling or a sore muscle, or around the spine where a joint or intervertebral disc presses on the exiting nerve root. Local regions of inflammation can also irritate and sensitise nerves due to swelling and chemical changes that are literally intended to make your body more sensitive to movement and load.

The symptoms of compression in the body can be different to those of compression at the nerve root where it exits the spine. Quite often the nerve symptoms of motor and sensory loss occur in addition to back pain or neck and shoulder pain. So the association is that the pain is just nerve pain and not a mixture of “issues in the tissues” from muscles and joint pain.

We often find that patients call their pain nerve pain when the intensity is high. As in, they feel that the more intense the pain is it must be more than a muscle or a joint issue. Let me assure you that all tissues in the body have the capacity to become extremely sensitive and painful and there is no need to worry that there is more going on when the severity is more than you have experienced in the past or it doesn’t seem to make sense.

What are trapped nerves?

We quite often hear patients say that they have a trapped nerve, or even that their GP told them it is a trapped nerve. Generally, the term is thrown around when we can’t really isolate what is going on, and it becomes the default description of anything that we can’t explain. People don’t really know what nerve pain is or how to determine what sensations can be differentiated as one thing or another. Pain is complicated and is extremely difficult to be specific about what such sensations mean.

A trapped nerve is essentially describing the compression of a nerve. There are several reasons nerves can become compressed, the most common being something like waking up on your hand or arm and experiencing a minute or two of pins and needles before things return to normal. This is known as transient ischaemia. Ischaemia is the reduction in blood flow caused by compression, and the transient element refers to a short duration or the non-constant nature of the stress on the nerve. As blood flow returns, the function of the nerve normalises and the symptoms resolve.

What are the symptoms of a trapped nerve?

A more constant compression may affect only some of the axons within the nerve so this is known as axonotmesis, whereas a similar effect on the whole nerve would be neurotmesis. The symptoms involved can include pain but will also include odd sensations, such as pins and needles or a feeling of water dripping down the affected area. Nerve compression can also lead to muscle weakness (motor loss), and anaesthesia (complete sensory loss) where skin sensation is compromised. Depending on the distribution of the symptoms, we should be able to work out where the nerve is compromised and give the best treatment and/or management advice.

The most significant nerve injury is neuropraxia where the symptoms will be all of the above. There is the possibility of some recovery to the nerve over time but the function may never be completely normal. The function of nerves is to conduct sensory signals to the brain from the body and motor signals from the brain to the muscles. We can get pain from a compromised nerve but symptoms will more likely give us sensory and/or motor changes.

What treatment is available for nerve pain at The Body Matters?

If you are concerned about the severity of the symptoms you are experiencing then we at The Body Matters can assess you and hopefully point you in the right direction of relief. There are tests we can do to try to isolate compression sites in the body by monitoring symptom exacerbation or relief when we put the body in various positions of ease or stress.

Some treatments that can help with nerve pain:

• Acupuncture: This traditional Chinese medicine technique involves inserting thin needles into specific points on the body to relieve pain.
• Massage Therapy: Regular massages can help reduce muscle tension and improve circulation.
• Meditation and Mindfulness: Techniques like mindfulness meditation can help manage pain and reduce stress.

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