Find something like this and hang upsidedown from your feet.
Posted on 08/29/2015 7:18:38 PM PDT by Maine Mariner
Some medical advice from Freepers is sorely needed.
About two weeks ago I twisted my lower back and the result sciatica. I have been taking 3 200mg of Advil and 2 300 mg Tylenol every six hours plus alternating between an ice pack (wrapped in a towel) and a hot water bottle. I have also been doing some exercises several times a day as recommended by my physical therapist. So here it is Saturday evening and I am in a lot of pain. What is so discouraging was today at about 2 pm for a couple of hours, I was pain free. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
My wife was down with sciatica for months. Medication, PT, Chiropractic and an exercise physiologist helped but she couldn’t get back to her normal activities.
With much reluctance, she finally got an epidural steroid injection, it wasn’t a cure by itself, but relieved the pain enough, the Therapist was able to improve her back strength, with improved strength, she was able to resume normal activities and over time, the pain is now intermittent and not debilitating.
I would recommend talking to your doc and get a referral to PT, if that doesn’t help, get evaluated by a pain doc. Unless there is evidence of nerve damage (can’t hold your stool, empty your bladder, or muscle wasting in your leg), avoid surgeons.
Avoid narcotics, they don’t work long term and can end up causing addiction or even worse, addiction with worsened pain. Occasional use of a muscle relaxer can help but AVOID Valium and Soma. They are not good muscle relaxers and can also have addiction issues. If your doc is OK with Valium or Soma for back pain, you may want to look for someone with more experience dealing with back pain.
Good luck! The odds are with you 90% of back pain, even sciatic will get better over time and without surgery. try to stay optomistic and keep moving.
If you have a pool, get in it. Exercising with the weight off your spine is healthy and usually benificial.
I had a very bad case at the same time I also had colitis, a double and very painful problem. The Docs could do nothing but prescribe pain pills but they were not stopping the pain, front and back. I went to an acupuncturist in desperation and had both acupressure and acupuncture. After a four-hour treatment, all my pains went away, I felt like a new man and neither malady ever came back. I took four more treatments and each one helped me be calmer and more effective in dealing with a very stressful job. It may not work for everyone, but for me it was the best treatment ever.
No it is really incredibly relaxing, though at first it can cause tenderness as it applies substantial pressure to areas if the body that are not used to receiving any pressure.
You are supposed to use it on the floor, but if you find that it applies more pressure than is desirable, you can also use it on a bed, which drastically reduces pressures applied.
But I found that after about three days of using it twice a day, I was able to completely lay on it without trying to lift myself off of it in any way.
And in order to be able to achieve sufficient enough pressure on the tailbone area for sciatica pain, I will put the roller under my butt in an area that is sufficiently meaty and life both my legs off the ground and hold them in the air such that the maximum amount of pressure I can achieve is placed on the tailbone.
Doing this makes sciatica pain just dissolve, which is great, because sciatica can hurt so bad at times it almost crippling.
That’s interesting. I was diagnosed a month ago with a B12 deficiency after a lot of blood work. I’ve had bad bouts of bronchitis over the years and it may be related to the B12. I am on 1000 micrograms per day sublingual. Haven’t really noticed any changes in anything. Last weekend I had an unexplained severe lower back flare up for no reason at all which was very odd. It subsided after increased stretching and Advil. I had not heard the sciatica / B12 connection. My neurologist found the deficiency and did a great job informing me about the need for B12 and good nervous system health (and immune system), so there does seem to be a connection.
Find something like this and hang upsidedown from your feet.
I had to walk with a cane for 5/6 years. Went to see a Chinese traditional herb doc. I have no idea where my cane is! 15 years of relief! Chinese herbal medicine has been used for almost 3 thousand years. It works!
Yes, thank you!
Thank you for your excellent recommendation. It changed my life.
Inversion table!
I had sciatica for a while from sitting on my wallet. I stopped putting it in my back pocket. I got an inversion table from Amazon. It only took a week and I was cured. I now have an inversion table that I don't use.
I agree with your whole post 100% from experience.
My guess is you need some actual muscle relaxants. Painkillers in general will reduce inflammation (and of course pain) but if the upset muscles are actually squeezing a nerve (frequent cause of sciatica) then muscle relaxants will target that. Can you see a doc and maybe get a Rx for that?
1st, why are you asking this on a web forum?
2nd, Only an MRI will show exactly what is going on.
3rd, you better get into a ortho doctor.
4th, If that is pain that is running down the back of your leg into your toes, then you have a pinched nerve.
5th, If you are older, your disc’s become hard and if damaged, they will not slip back into place.
How do I know? Because I had my L5 S1 fused in 95 because if I didnt, I would have become crippled because the spine will fuse itself with a big chance of the nerve being pinched completely off.
These days, they can fix that without the radical surgery I had to go through...it is nearly out patient now days.
Many find relief using an inversion table to let the spine decompress and possibly allow the nerves to get back in the right place.
Find decent used tables on craigsist.
Respectfully DISAGREE re Valium as a muscle relaxant. I had a bad bout with sciatica years ago and my stupid docs put me on 30 mg a day!! I was completely nonfunctional. I’d read a book and literally not remember a thing about it. There are other very effective muscle relaxants that won’t make you loopy! ;)
I took Tylenol for years for a variety of things and just thought that my body never responded well to pain killers.
Then I tried 800mg of Ibuprofen for a toothache as suggested by my dentist.
Amazing. The pain was gone for about six hours. Would not have believed it had I not experienced it.
Try it just to see if it makes a difference. I would not take this amount regularly but if it does help then take it long enough to get the pain worked out.
find a GOOD acupuncturist and/or a GOOD Rolfer.
either one can work miracles for this condition.
(1)Do a walletectomy. That is, if you carry your billfold on the hip, it twists your lower back Keep your billfold in a side jacket or pant pocket.
(2) Ibuprofen only, not principally as a "pain" medicine, bu as an anti-inflammatory.
(3) NO HOT PACKS! These only aggravate inflammation. Cold packs only, helps together with ibuprofen to diminish inflammation so healing can start to take place.
(4) NO straining exercises! This undoes the reattachment and healing! No exercises until healing is complete. The back muscles can get relief by lying on your stomach and resting your elevated trunk by leaning in your forearms to arch your back. This completely removes streaa from the muscles in the small of your back.
(5) The problems causing low back painmay be aggravated by tense neck muscles and strained vertebrae. Nod your head three times from erect down to the right, then three times to the left, then three times forward, then three times to the rear. Do this ecery three or four hours to free up your neck vertebrae.
(6) Sleep on your side, but place a fat pillow between your knes to relieve the back muscles.
(7) Athletes have racks where they can hang from their heels, thus the hung body weight relieves pressure on your joints long enough to help heal ligaments. (8) Do not let pain pills or muscle relaxants or anti-inflammatory medicines give you the idea that now you can now increase body activity . . . until more pain sets in due to more damage that the medicines can no longer relieve. That is contraindicated. Take the pills and just rest, avoiding stress. It is after the healing has taken place that exercise can strengthen the muscle and ligaments when the Wlliams Low Back Exercises are not so vigorous as to reintroduce painful damage.
(9) NEVER do full situps. Only take them to the point of raising the shoulders off the floor, not the whole trunk.
(10) When enough healing tahes place, you can do pushups on the stairs with your feet on the ;anging and your hand on the steps.
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(Incorporating advice from a wise chiropractor and a very experienced professor of treatment of athletes at the local university, as applied to myself. When you begin to feel fit again, go to the local karate instructor and get the illustrated sheet of their warmup exercises, whic will be bvery helpful in keeping muscle tone.)
I think that's an approach to be very careful of. Some of the worst advice on back pain comes from the medical doctors, as I found out to my chagrin. Their advice of muscle relaxants, hot packs, and initiating exercises while in pain was absolutely worse than just resting.
When I went to a wise (not a foolish) chiropractor (and there are quite a few fools in that business, IMO), I barely crawled in, but walked out. And save a couple of instances needing brief care, I kept on alking without pain.
The best people for muscle/joint injuries are experienced trainers of athletes who deal with this all the time, if disease or surgical procedures are not in the picture.
I’ve suffered with Sciatica for years.
Epidural injections do not help.
Narcotic pain meds can only be taken for so long.
Inversion therapy gives me the best relief.
Stretches are the best: but I ruptured a disk down there and required surgery.
Do whatever you can (recommend *non*-impact!) to lose weight:
give up carbs and swimming is probably best to start. And, under the care of a sports medicine doc, find a way to do exercises to build muscle especially in the core.
& Prayers up, too.
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