How do you know when it’s time to see your doctor dr. Brewster Bonnie because you know sometimes you said sometimes it could be a pulled muscle but sometimes it might be time to pick up that phone and make an appointment I’m really glad you asked that question if there’s one thing that I can contribute in today’s hour I think that would probably be most significant Thanks now most patients come to my office because of nerve pain nerve pain is just debilitating back pain patients usually can tolerate but one when it starts going down their thighs when the pains are shooting down their legs down their toes the big toe the bottom of the foot that’s just intolerable you can’t sleep you can’t walk and it’s not the kind of pain that you could just sort of think away it just keeps reminding you of it you know any position hurts it shoots like lightning is it like a sciatica almost that’s it yes now even though that’s the most common reason to come to the office it’s usually not dangerous what I would say is a reason to go see a doctor is a short list recent unwanted weight loss so when a patient says that I have lost 25 pounds in a month without dieting that’s a huge red flag when a patient says that they have incontinence or numbness of their inner thighs numbness around the groin Ramnath numbness around the anus that’s a huge red flag I want to bring up that graphic because I think it’s important for our viewers to see what dr. Bruce Evonik is talking about these red flags as you mentioned that numbness that’s that’s crucial right because if if you compress all of the nerves in the lower back patients will get something that’s called saddle anesthesia I imagine you sitting on a horse on a saddle the parts that are touching a saddle will become numb right that’s an emergency and that means that you have about 24 hours to get it corrected or the incontinence which is usually associated with that numbness will stay so that’s really the biggest red flag that’s the biggest and I can provide for the public you