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A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia.
Sciatica
Neuropathy - sciatic nerve; Sciatic nerve dysfunctionLast reviewed: June 4, 2011.
Sciatica refers to pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling in the leg. It is caused by injury to or pressure on the sciatic nerve. Sciatica is a symptom of another medical problem, not a medical condition on its own.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Sciatica occurs when there is pressure or damage to the sciatic nerve. This nerve starts in the lower spine and runs down the back of each leg. This nerve controls the muscles of the back of the knee and lower leg and provides sensation to the back of the thigh, part of the lower leg, and the sole of the foot.
Common causes of sciatica include:
Symptoms
Sciatica pain can vary widely. It may feel like a mild tingling, dull ache, or a burning sensation. In some cases, the pain is severe enough to make a person unable to move.
The pain most often occurs on one side. Some people have sharp pain in one part of the leg or hip and numbness in other parts. The pain or numbness may also be felt on the back of the calf or on the sole of the foot. The affected leg may feel weak.
The pain often starts slowly. Sciatica pain may get worse:
Signs and tests
Treatment
Because sciatica is a symptom of another medical condition, the underlying cause should be identified and treated.
In some cases, no treatment is required and recovery occurs on its own.
Conservative treatment is best in many cases. Your doctor may recommend the following steps to calm your symptoms and reduce inflammation.
Complications
Spinal stenosis
Pseudo-claudication; Central spinal stenosis; Foraminal spinal stenosisLast reviewed: June 4, 2011.
Spinal stenosis is narrowing of the spinal column that causes pressure on the spinal cord, or narrowing of the openings (called neural foramina) where spinal nerves leave the spinal column.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Spinal stenosis usually occurs as a person ages and the disks become drier and start to shrink. At the same time, the bones and ligaments of the spine swell or grow larger due to arthritis or long-term swelling (inflammation).
Spinal stenosis may also be caused by:
Treatment
When your back pain does not go away, or it gets more painful at times, learning to take care of your back at home and prevent repeat episodes of your back pain can help you avoid surgery.
Your doctor and other health professionals will help you manage your pain and keep you as active as possible.
SURGERY
If the pain does not respond to these treatments, or you lose movement or feeling, you may need surgery. Surgery is done to relieve pressure on the nerves or spinal cord.
You and your doctor can decide when you need to have surgery for these symptoms. Spinal stenosis symptoms often become worse over time, but this may happen very slowly.
CANNABIS AND TREATMENTS
Of course, whenever a physician tells a victim of sciatica to leave the bed occasionally and to move around a bit, that advice does not reduce the victims pain. The physician must thus suggest a medication that can cause the inflammation to subside and can reduce the amount of pain suffered by the mildly mobile patient. Medical marijuana appears to fill the bill in terms of seeing to the patients comfort as he or she passes through the period of watchful waiting.
In fact, the choices available a victim of sciatica, i.e. either bedrest or watchful waiting point out the absence of a better treatment. In fact, they highlight the advantage linked to medical marijuana. That substance not only causes the pain to subside but helps to prevent the development of depression. That unhealthy mental state can take hold of the mind if a person is allowed to perform only a few restricted activities.
Until fifteen years ago, total bed rest was the primary treatment for sciatica. However, a study done more than one decade ago showed that recovery could be achieved through use of a strategy called watchful waiting. When a doctor prescribes this approach, he or she calls for a pattern of greatly reduced movement but not continued confinement to a bed.
There are numerous studies that researchers and scientists have conducted that have proven data that the properties in medical marijuana are a safe and effective treatment as an anti-inflammatory and to reduce pain, without causing side effects.
Marijuana Has Anti-Inflammatory That Won't Get You High
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
June 24, 2008
A compound in marijuana may be a potent anti-inflammatory agent that won't get people high, scientists say. The finding could be a boon to sufferers of arthritis, cirrhosis, and other diseases. Existing drugs can be less effective for some people and can carry side effects, from stomach ulcers to increased risk of heart attacks.
![[Image: 080624-marijuana_170.jpg]](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/thumbs/080624-marijuana_170.jpg)
Marijuana supporters have long argued that the plant's active ingredients, known as cannabinoids, are safe and effective treatments for pain, nausea, and other ailments.
The most active cannabinoiddelta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THCis known to have anti-inflammatory properties. But it is also responsible for the plant's psychotropic effects.
Now researchers say that another cannabinoid, called beta-caryophyllene, or (E)-BCP, helps combat inflammation without affecting the brain.
(E)-BCP is already part of many people's daily diets, the researchers note. Foods that are particularly high in the compound include black pepper, oregano, basil, lime, cinnamon, carrots, and celery.
Essential oils from cannabis plantswhose leaves and flowers are used to make the marijuana drugcontain up to 35 percent (E)-BCP.
But even after decades of cannabis research, scientists hadn't previously known that the compound had anti-inflammatory properties.
"This is because the focus was on the classical cannabinoids [rather than (E)-BCP]," said lead study author Jrg Gertsch of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
My link
Science Daily
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2008) Cannabis has long been accredited with anti-inflammatory properties. ETH Zurich researchers, however, have now discovered that it is not only the familiar psychoactive substances that are responsible for this; a compound we take in every day in vegetable nutriment also plays a significant role.
![[Image: 080720222549-large.jpg]](http://images.sciencedaily.com/2008/07/080720222549-large.jpg)
People not only rate cannabis sativa L. highly because of its intoxicating effects; it has also long been used as a medicinal plant. Although the plant has been scrutinized for years, surprising new aspects keep cropping up. For example, researchers from ETH Zurich and Bonn University examined a component in the plants essential oil that until then had largely been ignored and found it to have remarkable phar- macological effects. The findings open up interesting perspectives, especially for the prevention and treatment of inflammations.
Completely different molecule structure
The hemp plant contains over 450 different substances, only three of which are responsible for its intoxicating effect. They activate the two receptors in the body CB1 and CB2. Whilst the CB1 receptor in the central nervous system influences perception, the CB2 receptor in the tissue plays a crucial role in inhibiting inflammation. If the receptor is activated, the cell releases fewer pro-inflammatory signal substances, or cytokines. The scientists have now discovered that the substance beta-carophyllene, which composes between 12 and 35 percent of the cannabis plants essential oil, activates the CB2 receptor selectively.
Unlike the three psychoactive substances, however, beta-carophyllene does not latch onto the CB1 receptor and consequently does not trigger the intoxicating effect. Due to the various effects of cannabis, we had suspected for quite some time that other substances could come into play besides the psychoactive ones, explains Jrg Gertsch from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at ETH Zurich. However, astonishingly we didnt know what substances these were until now. more
Both the spice, cinnamon and the medicinal herb, cannabis, provide beneficial anti-inflammatory effects. At least some of these healthy effects are from stimulation of the same receptors in your endocannabinoid receptor system.
Although useful and beneficial when protecting the body against bacterial intruders and other perils, inflammation becomes a medical problem if it becomes chronic. Diseases ending in itis, such as arthritis and gingivitis are just two of dozens of such maladies, laden with toxic effects to the tissues affected and destructive to the body in general. Indeed, chronic inflammation has become a key medical villain in the degenerative diseases that bedevil modern society. Such inflammation is now seen as a generator of atherosclerosis and is a potent cardiovascular risk factor.
Cinnamon has long been recognized for health-enhancing properties, including providing anti-inflammatory effects. The spices component coumarin, in cinnamomum aromaticum thins the blood. Increasingly, cinnamon appears to be very useful in addressing insulin resistance and diabetes.
At least some of the spices anti-inflammatory properties come from its another component shared with other spices, beta-caryophyllene. Cloves, black pepper, rosemary, hops and other spices all provide this component of essential oils. For further info contact Skunk pharm Research LLC (tell em Eddie sent ya)
Stimulation of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB<sub>2</sub>) suppresses microglial activation
Background
Activated microglial cells have been implicated in a number of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and HIV dementia. It is well known that inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), cytokines, and chemokines play an important role in microglial cell-associated neuron cell damage. Our previous studies have shown that CD40 signaling is involved in pathological activation of microglial cells. Many data reveal that cannabinoids mediate suppression of inflammation in vitro and in vivo through stimulation of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB<sub>2</sub>).
Methods
In this study, we investigated the effects of a cannabinoid agonist on CD40 exp<b></b>ression and function by cultured microglial cells activated by IFN- using RT-PCR, Western immunoblotting, flow cytometry, and anti-CB<sub>2 </sub>small interfering RNA (siRNA) analyses. Furthermore, we examined if the stimulation of CB<sub>2 </sub>could modulate the capacity of microglial cells to phagocytise A<sub>142 </sub>peptide using a phagocytosis assay.
Results
We found that the selective stimulation of cannabinoid receptor CB<sub>2 </sub>by JWH-015 suppressed IFN--induced CD40 exp<b></b>ression. In addition, this CB<sub>2 </sub>agonist markedly inhibited IFN--induced phosphorylation of JAK/STAT1. Further, this stimulation was also able to suppress microglial TNF- and nitric oxide production induced either by IFN- or A peptide challenge in the presence of CD40 ligation. Finally, we showed that CB<sub>2 </sub>activation by JWH-015 markedly attenuated CD40-mediated inhibition of microglial phagocytosis of A<sub>142 </sub>peptide. Taken together, these results provide mechanistic insight into beneficial effects provided by cannabinoid receptor CB<sub>2 </sub>modulation in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly AD.
more
List of abbreviations
A : Amyloid- peptide
CD40: CD40 receptor
CD40L: CD40 ligand
CNS: Central nervous system
HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus
IFN- : Interferon-gamma
JAK: Janus kinase
MHC II: Major histocompatibility complex II
STAT1: Signal transducer and activator of transcription 1
TNF- : Tumor necrosis factor-alpha
Sciatica
Neuropathy - sciatic nerve; Sciatic nerve dysfunctionLast reviewed: June 4, 2011.
Sciatica refers to pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling in the leg. It is caused by injury to or pressure on the sciatic nerve. Sciatica is a symptom of another medical problem, not a medical condition on its own.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Sciatica occurs when there is pressure or damage to the sciatic nerve. This nerve starts in the lower spine and runs down the back of each leg. This nerve controls the muscles of the back of the knee and lower leg and provides sensation to the back of the thigh, part of the lower leg, and the sole of the foot.
Common causes of sciatica include:
- Slipped disk
- Piriformis syndrome (a pain disorder involving the narrow muscle in the buttocks)
- Pelvic injury or fracture
- Tumors
Symptoms
Sciatica pain can vary widely. It may feel like a mild tingling, dull ache, or a burning sensation. In some cases, the pain is severe enough to make a person unable to move.
The pain most often occurs on one side. Some people have sharp pain in one part of the leg or hip and numbness in other parts. The pain or numbness may also be felt on the back of the calf or on the sole of the foot. The affected leg may feel weak.
The pain often starts slowly. Sciatica pain may get worse:
- After standing or sitting
- At night
- When sneezing, coughing, or laughing
- When bending backwards or walking more than a few yards, especially if caused by spinal stenosis
Signs and tests
Treatment
Because sciatica is a symptom of another medical condition, the underlying cause should be identified and treated.
In some cases, no treatment is required and recovery occurs on its own.
Conservative treatment is best in many cases. Your doctor may recommend the following steps to calm your symptoms and reduce inflammation.
- Apply heat or ice to the painful area. Try ice for the first 48 - 72 hours, then use heat after that.
- Take over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB) or acetaminophen (Tylenol).
Complications
Spinal stenosis
Pseudo-claudication; Central spinal stenosis; Foraminal spinal stenosisLast reviewed: June 4, 2011.
Spinal stenosis is narrowing of the spinal column that causes pressure on the spinal cord, or narrowing of the openings (called neural foramina) where spinal nerves leave the spinal column.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Spinal stenosis usually occurs as a person ages and the disks become drier and start to shrink. At the same time, the bones and ligaments of the spine swell or grow larger due to arthritis or long-term swelling (inflammation).
Spinal stenosis may also be caused by:
- Arthritis of the spine, usually in middle-aged or elderly people
- Bone diseases, such as Paget's disease of bone and achondroplasia
- Defect or growth in the spine that was present from birth (congenital defect)
- Herniated or slipped disk, which often happened in the past
- Injury that causes pressure on the nerve roots or the spinal cord
- Tumors in the spine
Treatment
When your back pain does not go away, or it gets more painful at times, learning to take care of your back at home and prevent repeat episodes of your back pain can help you avoid surgery.
Your doctor and other health professionals will help you manage your pain and keep you as active as possible.
- Your doctor may refer you for physical therapy. The physical therapist will help you try to reduce your pain using stretches. The therapist will show you how to do exercises that make your neck muscles stronger.
- You may also see a massage therapist, and someone who performs acupuncture. Sometimes a few visits will help your back or neck pain.
- Cold packs and heat therapy may help your pain during flare-ups.
- A number of different medications can help with your back pain. See also: Medicines for chronic pain
SURGERY
If the pain does not respond to these treatments, or you lose movement or feeling, you may need surgery. Surgery is done to relieve pressure on the nerves or spinal cord.
You and your doctor can decide when you need to have surgery for these symptoms. Spinal stenosis symptoms often become worse over time, but this may happen very slowly.
- People who had long-term back pain before their surgery are likely to still have some pain afterwards. Spinal fusion probably will not take away all the pain and other symptoms.
- Even when using MRI scans or other tests, it is hard for your surgeon to always predict whether you will improve and how much relief surgery will provide.
CANNABIS AND TREATMENTS
Of course, whenever a physician tells a victim of sciatica to leave the bed occasionally and to move around a bit, that advice does not reduce the victims pain. The physician must thus suggest a medication that can cause the inflammation to subside and can reduce the amount of pain suffered by the mildly mobile patient. Medical marijuana appears to fill the bill in terms of seeing to the patients comfort as he or she passes through the period of watchful waiting.
In fact, the choices available a victim of sciatica, i.e. either bedrest or watchful waiting point out the absence of a better treatment. In fact, they highlight the advantage linked to medical marijuana. That substance not only causes the pain to subside but helps to prevent the development of depression. That unhealthy mental state can take hold of the mind if a person is allowed to perform only a few restricted activities.
Until fifteen years ago, total bed rest was the primary treatment for sciatica. However, a study done more than one decade ago showed that recovery could be achieved through use of a strategy called watchful waiting. When a doctor prescribes this approach, he or she calls for a pattern of greatly reduced movement but not continued confinement to a bed.
There are numerous studies that researchers and scientists have conducted that have proven data that the properties in medical marijuana are a safe and effective treatment as an anti-inflammatory and to reduce pain, without causing side effects.
Marijuana Has Anti-Inflammatory That Won't Get You High
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
June 24, 2008
A compound in marijuana may be a potent anti-inflammatory agent that won't get people high, scientists say. The finding could be a boon to sufferers of arthritis, cirrhosis, and other diseases. Existing drugs can be less effective for some people and can carry side effects, from stomach ulcers to increased risk of heart attacks.
Marijuana supporters have long argued that the plant's active ingredients, known as cannabinoids, are safe and effective treatments for pain, nausea, and other ailments.
The most active cannabinoiddelta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THCis known to have anti-inflammatory properties. But it is also responsible for the plant's psychotropic effects.
Now researchers say that another cannabinoid, called beta-caryophyllene, or (E)-BCP, helps combat inflammation without affecting the brain.
(E)-BCP is already part of many people's daily diets, the researchers note. Foods that are particularly high in the compound include black pepper, oregano, basil, lime, cinnamon, carrots, and celery.
Essential oils from cannabis plantswhose leaves and flowers are used to make the marijuana drugcontain up to 35 percent (E)-BCP.
But even after decades of cannabis research, scientists hadn't previously known that the compound had anti-inflammatory properties.
"This is because the focus was on the classical cannabinoids [rather than (E)-BCP]," said lead study author Jrg Gertsch of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
My link
Science Daily
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2008) Cannabis has long been accredited with anti-inflammatory properties. ETH Zurich researchers, however, have now discovered that it is not only the familiar psychoactive substances that are responsible for this; a compound we take in every day in vegetable nutriment also plays a significant role.
People not only rate cannabis sativa L. highly because of its intoxicating effects; it has also long been used as a medicinal plant. Although the plant has been scrutinized for years, surprising new aspects keep cropping up. For example, researchers from ETH Zurich and Bonn University examined a component in the plants essential oil that until then had largely been ignored and found it to have remarkable phar- macological effects. The findings open up interesting perspectives, especially for the prevention and treatment of inflammations.
Completely different molecule structure
The hemp plant contains over 450 different substances, only three of which are responsible for its intoxicating effect. They activate the two receptors in the body CB1 and CB2. Whilst the CB1 receptor in the central nervous system influences perception, the CB2 receptor in the tissue plays a crucial role in inhibiting inflammation. If the receptor is activated, the cell releases fewer pro-inflammatory signal substances, or cytokines. The scientists have now discovered that the substance beta-carophyllene, which composes between 12 and 35 percent of the cannabis plants essential oil, activates the CB2 receptor selectively.
Unlike the three psychoactive substances, however, beta-carophyllene does not latch onto the CB1 receptor and consequently does not trigger the intoxicating effect. Due to the various effects of cannabis, we had suspected for quite some time that other substances could come into play besides the psychoactive ones, explains Jrg Gertsch from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at ETH Zurich. However, astonishingly we didnt know what substances these were until now. more
Both the spice, cinnamon and the medicinal herb, cannabis, provide beneficial anti-inflammatory effects. At least some of these healthy effects are from stimulation of the same receptors in your endocannabinoid receptor system.
Although useful and beneficial when protecting the body against bacterial intruders and other perils, inflammation becomes a medical problem if it becomes chronic. Diseases ending in itis, such as arthritis and gingivitis are just two of dozens of such maladies, laden with toxic effects to the tissues affected and destructive to the body in general. Indeed, chronic inflammation has become a key medical villain in the degenerative diseases that bedevil modern society. Such inflammation is now seen as a generator of atherosclerosis and is a potent cardiovascular risk factor.
Cinnamon has long been recognized for health-enhancing properties, including providing anti-inflammatory effects. The spices component coumarin, in cinnamomum aromaticum thins the blood. Increasingly, cinnamon appears to be very useful in addressing insulin resistance and diabetes.
At least some of the spices anti-inflammatory properties come from its another component shared with other spices, beta-caryophyllene. Cloves, black pepper, rosemary, hops and other spices all provide this component of essential oils. For further info contact Skunk pharm Research LLC (tell em Eddie sent ya)
Stimulation of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB<sub>2</sub>) suppresses microglial activation
Background
Activated microglial cells have been implicated in a number of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and HIV dementia. It is well known that inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), cytokines, and chemokines play an important role in microglial cell-associated neuron cell damage. Our previous studies have shown that CD40 signaling is involved in pathological activation of microglial cells. Many data reveal that cannabinoids mediate suppression of inflammation in vitro and in vivo through stimulation of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB<sub>2</sub>).
Methods
In this study, we investigated the effects of a cannabinoid agonist on CD40 exp<b></b>ression and function by cultured microglial cells activated by IFN- using RT-PCR, Western immunoblotting, flow cytometry, and anti-CB<sub>2 </sub>small interfering RNA (siRNA) analyses. Furthermore, we examined if the stimulation of CB<sub>2 </sub>could modulate the capacity of microglial cells to phagocytise A<sub>142 </sub>peptide using a phagocytosis assay.
Results
We found that the selective stimulation of cannabinoid receptor CB<sub>2 </sub>by JWH-015 suppressed IFN--induced CD40 exp<b></b>ression. In addition, this CB<sub>2 </sub>agonist markedly inhibited IFN--induced phosphorylation of JAK/STAT1. Further, this stimulation was also able to suppress microglial TNF- and nitric oxide production induced either by IFN- or A peptide challenge in the presence of CD40 ligation. Finally, we showed that CB<sub>2 </sub>activation by JWH-015 markedly attenuated CD40-mediated inhibition of microglial phagocytosis of A<sub>142 </sub>peptide. Taken together, these results provide mechanistic insight into beneficial effects provided by cannabinoid receptor CB<sub>2 </sub>modulation in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly AD.
more
List of abbreviations
A : Amyloid- peptide
CD40: CD40 receptor
CD40L: CD40 ligand
CNS: Central nervous system
HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus
IFN- : Interferon-gamma
JAK: Janus kinase
MHC II: Major histocompatibility complex II
STAT1: Signal transducer and activator of transcription 1
TNF- : Tumor necrosis factor-alpha