Sciatica help please

There are only two things that work for me when my sciatica acts up....time and/or my chiropractor. I hope yours eases up soon, as I know how painful it can be.

There are only two things that work for me when my sciatica acts up....time and/or my chiropractor. I hope yours eases up soon, as I know how painful it can be.

thanks, me too hehe, Tired of feeling like my bottom on one side is numb

On a positive note, mine hasn't flared up in a long, long time. I'm pretty sure the absence of it can be attributed to weight loss and physical activity. I used to have chronic lower back pain (at times, nearly crippling). My weight loss has banished that as well!! One day, I just realized that I hadn't had any back pain for a long time!

I would go see a chiropractor. I have a history of lower back pain and the two things that help the most when it goes out are a trip to my chiro (she's amazing and I love her) and stretching. I started doing yoga twice a week and I haven't had a problem with my lower back in quite sometime.

There are only two things that work for me when my sciatica acts up....time and/or my chiropractor. I hope yours eases up soon, as I know how painful it can be.

Exact same for me, I suffered years before going to the chiropractor. Finally went and it is the only thing that helps quickly. Also ice not heat, ibuprofen, and continuous ab work to strengthen your core!!

Google Periformis stretch.

That stretch is the only one that helps me through the days. I do it several times a day and when I cannot walk anymore because of pain it is the only thing that will help me.

It stretches the muscle that spasms and pinches the nerve.

I've also started to do Pilates and now added other core muscle strengthening work-outs with hopes to prevent the spasms in the future.

Good luck!

Water aerobics has helped my sciatica. There is a stretch that can be done on land that will help ease the pain: Find something very heavy that won''t move, hold on to it while you place one ankle on your other knee. Slowly "sit" back on an imaginary chair. Your supporting leg should be at a 90 degree angle. Just relax and let it stretch out. Switch legs and stretch that area. This is a favorite stretch for our water classes. I taught this to a man who had ridden 11 hours in a car and could not move. He was up and jogging around the next day! It really works. The swelling is cause for concern thought..... get it checked out.

Well, I first must say the obligatory "go see your doctor" if it's really bad. Especially if you've never been seen to make sure it actually is sciatica and not something else. If it is, I suggest getting a foam roller for your back. I started c25k last fall and got hit with a really bad bout of sciatica a few weeks in. I had to go to the doctor for pain medication because I couldn't even sleep. Two of my MFP friends suggested I try a foam roller. So I looked around and got a cheap one to try out. I has taken a couple weeks off running then got back to it and could feel a flare up starting again and used the roller - and my back was better the next day. I love it!! Now I use it after every run, and often after my other workouts. I never would have believed something so simple would make such a dramatic difference, but it has, at least for me.

the butterfly stretch and sleeping like a frog are the only things tha work for me massaging it makes it worse

I suggest you go see an ortho doctor and have it checked. I'm a physical therapist and I've seen the worse cases of sciatica (chronic) There are some movements you need to avoid to prevent further compression. Coz if not seen and treated it might get worse, inital symptoms are just pain, numbness, just sensory deficit but soon can affect motor component of nerves leading to weakness/paralysis. Physical therapy will help you, they have modalities, stretching, core strengthening, and exercise that will help decompress the impingement. Also they can use lumbar traction to decompress the nerve.

The chiropractor did help me some but it was the physiotherapist that helped me tremendously with my severe sciatica 1.5 yrs ago. She had me do exercises where I lay on my stomach for 5 min to relax the spine and then did push ups onto my elbows and back down; do ten, rest for a minute, then 10 more, rest and another 10. She said not to hold it at the top of the push up. That gets the bulging disk to protrude frontwards instead of backwards so it's not compressing the nerve. The pain gradually vanished over a month to 6 weeks and as long as I don't sit with a rounded back, such as on a very soft couch, I have no pain now. I do aquafit, yoga and walking and I'm so happy to be able to exercise without that severe pain. Any time I have even a twinge after sitting on the wrong thing, I promptly do back bends which relieves it now. Hope it helps you.

Yeah, thats correct. Thats the Mckenzie Extension Exercises. Its better not to self diagnose yourself as there are a lot of causes of back pain wherein some are opposite/contradictory in the movement that you should do for exercises and to avoid. once u go to a doctor, they'll do MRI of your back to know what causing your back pain, then therapy will help you with the treatment and exercises you need to do. I'm not against chiropractor but first line of consult should still be Ortho doctor.

Hi there-
I am in a similar situation. I have been running for about a year and a half, and in November I started having this pain in my left buttock when I was laying flat in bed and the pain was intense any time I had to turn over. I didn't really do anything about it because the pain went away completely when I got out of bed and started moving around. Then because I was planning on having surgery (totally unrealated from this) I decided to agressivly treat this pain in my butt. At the beginning of March I went to an orthopedic doc and he had no clue, and ended up giving me a cortisone shot in my butt. It helped for about 4 days but then came back. I stopped exercising at the beginning of April and started taking Ibuprofen 800mg every 8 hours, using a heating pad at night when I went to bed, did 20 minutes of piriformis stretches every morning when I woke up and every night before going to bed, I was also taking muscle relaxers at night before bed and doing myofascial release using a tennis ball. None of this helped, in fact, after stopping my running it seemed to get worse. I can not lay flat on my back at all with my legs straight out in front of me or I get intense cramping pain in my left butt muscle, along with sciatic pain down the lateral part of my calf. I googled gluteaus minimus and medius pain and that seemed to explain the pseudo sciatic pain in my leg. It's for sure pinpoint in the middle of my butt however I am not sure what else I can do for this. I ended up canceling my surgery that I was planning for the last year, and I am so bummed. But without being able to lay flat there was no way I could recover from the surgery. I am scheduled to see my general doctor on Monday and I am hoping to get a referral to a massage therapist, possibly a sports physiotherapist and get more muscle relaxers. I hear that this is a common overuse injury amoung runners, so I am eager to see if anyone else has any opinions or things that they have tried and had sucess with.

I would quit the ripped and 30DS at once. I had it for years, got to the point were I was looking at surgery. Meet the surgeon(paid through the nose). Exercise especially anytihng intense would increase the pain of mine. Mine would start in my right foot arch, and work its way up.

The problem with Sciatica is there a many different causes, mine was due to a PARS Defect and incidental spina bifida occulta, yours could be due to a muscle strain, disc problem, tendons, hips.

GO TO YOUR PHYSIO OR GP.

I ended up having a series of xrays over 2years and MRI scan. Hit the PHYSIO or GP

Sometimes Sciatica is overdiagnosed there is something called pseudo sciatica and it's actually caused by a tight piriformis muscle, I would suggest massage or chiropractic care. I also find two stretches amazing for it, if you sit on a chair and cross one leg over the other then slightly fold forward keeping a straight back you will feel a stretch through the glutes, there is also the yoga pose called pigeon that is great (but a little more advanced). you could also sit and roll a tennis ball over your glutes

I don;t know if my pain is sciatica or the tight muscle described above, but going to the chiropractor and using this exact stretch (as above) always helps relieve the shotting pains I sometimes feel down my left hand side!

I had this last summer. I had to be careful even just standing or a shooting pain would go down my leg and it would collapse (and this was only a couple months before heading off the University on a cross country scholarship so I was pretty freaked out). If you're wondering what cardio you will be able to do the first thing I could do was biking, and later on walking. About a month later I could elliptical and a month after that I could run. I would definatly check with you doctor before excercising though, because you don't want to aggravate anything. Also, everyone is different so you might be able to do different things than I was.

I'm no doctor, but the pain in your butt sounds like it could be your piriformus (hope I spelled that correctly). I believe some people's sciatic nerve goes through thieir piriformus muscle and when the muscle gets too tight can cause sciatica. Again though, I'm no expert, but its something you might want to consider. Maybe some stretches?

Good luck. The hardest part was never knowing when/if the pain would go away but it does, and I'm sure you'll be back to running in no time.