Front Thigh Pain (Femoral Nerve Pain)

Sciatic nerve impingement always seems to get so much attention when it comes to lower back issues.

Impingement is a fancy term for a nerve being compressed or irritated in some way. The way a nerve is irritated can be through either

• muscle
• bone
• tumor
• disc

Something is pressing on the nerve.

With sciatic nerve pain , you can feel it very specifically towards your backside. Nerve pain is a tricky thing, it feels so broad and general it’s hard to really describe sometimes where it’s coming from. But rest assured that femoral nerve pain is different.

Think of it as the cousin of sciatica.

Femoral nerve pain starts at the lower back as well and its pain wraps around the front of your thigh. In desperation you could be placing ice and heat on the front of your thigh and achieve absolutely no relief. You have to target the lower back region first.

In massage, the same concept applies when we are working on any nerve pain that reflects to the lower extremities (e.g. legs).

A good word of caution is to eliminate that the nerve isn’t being compromised by the above mentioned things (disc, bone or tumor). If that’s the case, there’s not much massage therapy can do to help. Now, let’s explore a way that this pain could have occurred. Say you’ve been sitting on a plane ride for hours at a time in awkward positions. All of sudden you do a seemingly simple activity and before you know it , you have lower back pain, but it’s only one sided.

Another clue that you have specific nerve pain is that you feel some or at least one of the following:

• burning
• tingling
• a general pain running down your leg or arm
• extreme cold (or heat) down the arm or leg

Massage therapy could be a wonderful tool in releasing the  muscle spasm that’s irritating the nerve and that may be all you need to recover completely. Just remember to rule out all possibility of anything else blocking that nerve.

For diagnostic testing you can have your doctor prescribe an MRI because you have many nerves that can produce lower back pain that radiates to your leg.

Sciatic nerve pain can travel all the way down to the soles of your feet! (It’s a very long nerve) and femoral nerve pain will wrap around your leg and may stop on the side in front of your thigh.

If this was brought on by standing or sitting for long periods of time, consider the following for preventive measures:

• strengthening your lower back muscle with exercise
• implementing a daily stretching routine for your lower back and gluteal muscles in as little as five minutes in the morning and evening.
• If you sit for work, consider investing in a standing work station where you can give your lower back muscles a break.

All of these are natural prevention methods that will save you time and money when seeking relief from lower back pain. I hope this post helps to differentiate between sciatic and nerve pain and some tips to help you find relief.