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- The Low Back · Uncommon Problems
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- The Low Back
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From The Low Back
SCIATICA SETTING
The only treatment in the article given entirely with the hands, on the foot — and filed under a low-back diagnosis. It is a progression, not a repetition: each stage divides the toes differently from the one before. (Figure 22.6)
Keep the leg straight on the ground and place a pillow under the foot. Do the left foot first, then the right. Supine Left Right × 3
With one hand, hold their heel so that it cannot move. Then, with the other hand grasping the toes firmly, bend the forefoot upward, pause for a few seconds, then bend it downward. Do three rounds. After this, both hands are used — and at each turn the toes are divided differently, one hand holding a shrinking group and the other the big toe with, next time, one more toe added to it, the two hands bent together in opposite directions, upward and downward — pause — bend.
| Stage | One hand holds | The other holds | The movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The heel, held so it cannot move | The whole forefoot, the toes grasped firmly | Bend up — pause a few seconds — bend down. Three rounds |
| 2 | The four small toes | The big toe | That big toe bent up and down — pause — bend |
| 3 | Three toes | Big toe + first toe, together | Both hands together in opposite directions, up and down — pause — bend |
| 4 | The remaining toes | Big toe + first + second, all three held together | Both hands together in opposite directions, upward and downward — pause — bend |
| … | Continuing in this same way | Carry on until the smallest toe |
This is very useful for disc bulge.
At every stage one hand holds a shrinking group and the other a growing one, and the two are bent against each other, so the dividing line walks across the foot one toe at a time until every pair of neighbours has been worked against its neighbour. That is why it is a "setting" and not a stretch. And the written count of three rounds belongs to stage 1; the stages that follow are given once each as the line moves across.
Two details hold it up. The heel is fixed first, because a foot free at the ankle absorbs the whole movement there and nothing reaches the joints you are aiming at. And the pause is written into every stage — up, pause a few seconds, down. It is not a swinging of the foot but a held position, a wait, and the opposite held position.
What lies beneath. Bending toes and forefoot upward draws tight the strong fibrous band under the sole and the small muscles between the long bones of the foot; bending one toe up while its neighbour goes down shears the spaces between those bones, where the small nerves to the toes run. Toe and ankle bending upward is also the manoeuvre used everywhere to add tension along the nerve line running continuously from the sole to the low back — so working a foot in a patient with leg symptoms is not the arbitrary act it looks. What it plainly is: a low-force, well-tolerated mobilisation of the foot, easy to stop at any moment.
Also explained in
- Introduction The Low Back
Give the Sciatica point and the whole of Sciatica setting, toe by toe to the smallest one; and Bending forward, Standing point, Pelvic and Bindu, each with its own position, count and limit.
- The heading this group carries The Low Back
Where the therapist stands Named in Astride the L5–S1 joint, weight on the palms through the chairs L5–S1 ghisai, stage 3 Prone Comfortably near the waist, full weight on the hands through the chairs Fracture point — th
- BINDU POINT — the long diagonal The Low Back
Sciatica setting: leg straight, pillow under the foot, left foot first; one hand fixes the heel, the other bends the forefoot up — pause — down, three rounds; then the toes are divided one at a time and counter-bent unti
- The master list — every treatment point, by the position the patient is placed in The Shorthand
Code Full name / Hindi Where it is taught in this wiki Adr Adrenal Face Down Swt Sweat Face Down Back Arrow Back Arrow, or Blood supply to lungs Face Down H arrow — Face Down On the spine — Face Down Beside the spine — Face Down Round arrow —
- Questions students ask The Shorthand
Two lists contain Sciatica setting.