A friend of mine was allegedly brought to a hospital and was diagnosed to have a” pinched nerve”. I haven’t heard what happened to her next but I was asked by our other friends to expound more about this condition. It was suggested that I make it as a blog post, so here it is. Nerves are fibers that extend from the brain and spinal cord into the different parts of the body. They are responsible for our sensations as well as the motor activities of our body organs. In Tagalog, we refer to them as ‘ugat’, although this confuses some as referring to the arteries and veins which carry blood to and from the heart. But being composed of fibers, the nerves are the rightful “ugat”. A “pinched nerve”, as the term implies, is a condition where pressure is being applied to a certain nerve by the surrounding tissues causing irritation and disruption of the nerve's function, i.e. to give sensation or to cause movement. One of the most common examples of a single compressed nerve is the feel...