The pain is in your leg. The problem is not.

By taking the pressure off the nerve root and then addressing what put it there. That means finding the level first. Where the pain travels, which reflexes change and what strength testing shows point at one segment, and that segment is what gets treated.

Where a restricted segment is contributing, it is treated directly. Where the soft tissue around it has locked down, that is treated too. Two traction tables on site are used when the examination calls for it.

Many do, within two to six weeks, when the cause was a one off strain and nothing keeps re-irritating it. The ones that do not tend to have something mechanical holding the pressure in place, and those are the ones still there at three months.

The useful dividing line is whether it is improving week on week. If it is flat or worsening after six weeks, it is worth examining rather than waiting out.

Most episodes settle. Recurrence is the real issue: the nerve calms down, the mechanics that compressed it stay the same, and it returns. That is why the examination looks at what loaded the segment rather than only at the segment itself.

Permanent damage is uncommon and takes sustained compression to produce. Pain and tingling almost always settle. Lasting numbness or weakness in one muscle group is the signal that matters, because that points at a nerve losing function rather than one that is irritated, and it changes how urgently you should be seen.

Two to six weeks for a straightforward episode. Past six weeks the odds of it resolving without intervention drop, and past three months it is usually being maintained by something that has not been addressed. Duration is one of the five readings in the Compression Score for that reason.

It can take the edge off, because the muscle guarding around a compressed root is itself painful. It does not address the compression. Soft tissue work alongside treatment of the segment is reasonable; soft tissue work instead of finding the level tends to produce temporary relief and a return.

An MRI shows the structures: a disc bulge, narrowing, a nerve root with something pressing on it. What it cannot tell you is whether that finding is the source of your symptoms. Plenty of people have a visible bulge and no pain at all.

That is why the examination matters more than the image. Symptom mapping, reflexes and strength testing establish whether the structure on the scan matches the problem you walked in with.

Compression in the upper neck can come with dizziness, because the joints there feed position information to the balance system and the surrounding muscles are involved too. Dizziness has many causes and several are not mechanical, so it is screened at the examination rather than assumed.

Yes, when the involved level is in the upper neck. The nerves from the top three segments share pathways with those serving the back and side of the head, so irritation there is commonly felt as a headache that starts at the base of the skull. Those often respond well because the mechanical contributor is addressable.

Usually not. The cases that are serious announce themselves: weakness that keeps getting worse, numbness spreading rather than settling, or loss of bladder or bowel control. The last of those is an emergency department matter the same day, not a chiropractic one.

For a first episode with pain and tingling and no weakness, a chiropractor or a physical therapist is the usual starting point, and no referral is needed in Florida. For progressive weakness or a nerve that is losing function, a spine surgeon or a neurologist.

The examination here establishes which of those you are, and you are told on the first visit if this needs somebody else.

Chiropractors, physical therapists, physiatrists and spine surgeons all treat them, at different stages. Conservative care is the first line for most people. The Compression Score is five questions and will tell you roughly where in that sequence your situation sits.