Posted on 01/19/2025 10:12:59 AM PST by God luvs America
Does anyone have any treatments for sciatica or any recommendations? I have it awful!!
Little background- i trained for the Olympics for 10 years (decathlon) and still workout daily, an hour and a half to two hours. A lot of running, swimming, weightlifting. I'm in good shape- great shape for my age.
I've had a problem with my left hip which has morphed into sciatica the past six months. It was initially annoying but now its almost debilitating. Had to stop three times on my run this morning.
Severe pain is in the lower half of my butt check through my hamstring. Calf and a achillies a bit tight but nothing bad.
Thanks
Make sure to rule out arthritis. I had to get a hip replacement to help sciatic pain.
I think sciatica is a symptom ... the root cause must be identified and treated ...
Get an opinion on hip replacement
Its a life changer
Don’t wait out something going to get worse
But in the meantime what helps a lot is prescription grade muscle relaxers
Stretching exercises plus I went to an osteopathic physician (DO). No, this is not a chiropractor! They are trained in medicine like an MD and have same hospital privileges. Their osteopathic training gives them enough manipulative therapeutic techniques to be effective on things like sciatic. They guy I went to used to be a team doctor for “sports” at the local university. His treatment really helped. He also assigned me to a physical therapist. They did a rigorous stretching regime (which much of I still do!) on me. The stretching got the pain down to where the DO could work with me. Also, I was given some lower back strengthening routines that I incorporate into my normal workout.
80, 3 back surgeries for herniated discs, 1 fixed by chiro, 1 10mm herniation healed by the Lord, - I’m an expert, former runner until I was 69....sciatica about 6 times.
There are too many different causes of sciatica for anyone to diagnose it or give you something to fix it here. Only definitive thing to tell is an MRI.
Doc will insist on PT before MRI which may or may not help.
Only then can you know how to proceed with treatment, which can start very conservative......you never know.....
I had it and the doctor with the help of a physiotherapist created a series of exercise for me. Mostly like doing streching or yoga poses. I guess it depends on where your main problem is located.
This may sound trite, but I would check to see if your legs are unequal in length. A couple of years ago, I started having pain in my right hip and leg. It occurred to me that perhaps one of my legs had gotten out of balance, so I ordered some ¼ inch lifts for my shoes. I tried it in one shoe, but it seemed to make it worse, so I switched it to the other shoe. That one did not make it worse, so I continued wearing it in that shoe. It wasn’t too many days til the pain ceased altogether.
Short term, stretch your piriformis.
Get an MRI . . . Otherwise the docs are just guessing. Turned out I had a severe stenosis at L4-L5. Had surgery and that resolved it immediately.
On your hip. Hope you feel better soon. I have this too, and it’s painful. This works.
Possibly a very, very slightly dislocated left leg - from the hip socket. Causes one or more strains that can take a long time to heal.
Stop running; but do walk. Lift weights when you are on your back with knees up - in other words, with your lower back unweighted.
Swimming - is good. But, you need to allow the left side to rest.
Basic back exercise: On your back, knees up, cycle 1 leg at-a-time. Don’t over do it. Alternate leg cycling.
While working each leg, work your arms. Online, you will find a diagram of that basic back exercise.
Learn to unweight your back, by planting both hands/palms/fists on a counter . . . and leaning forward to shift weight to your arms. This takes a bit of weight off your back and allows a moment of improved circulation in and around your discs.
Anothe unweighting - using both arms, hands gripping the armrests of a chair, suspend yourself above the chair seat . . . again, that takes weight off your lower back.
These are typically exercises that you will be doing for the rest of your life.
Then don’t enter politics. A conscience will only hold you back.
Different stretches/exercises vary for each, but the stretch that works best for me is the crossed leg stretch.
Sit on the edge of a chair, place your left foot on your right knee (since it’s your left side), and with your back straight bend forward and down to touch your right foot. I have to center my foot on the floor with my body, and I make sure I don’t push my knee out over my foot (bad for knee?). Hold for 30-60 seconds, and repeat 3-5 times.
Hip rolls also help me (horse stance in martial arts). Stand with your feet at least shoulder width apart, slightly more if desired, knees bent slightly, back straight and roll your hips forward. Hold and repeat as with any other stretch.
I know how bad it hurts, so I hope this helps.
“””Had to stop three times on my run this morning.”””
After spending a week in the hospital with my worst sciatica flareup, I had to stop running.
That was 40 years ago and I only had a couple of sciatica issues after 1985 that were not as painful
Last flareup was 25 years ago.
Of course, my BMI is not what it used to be.
Thanks for posting this.
I just developed sciatica last week!
Had it bad for 20 years. Now cured.
1. Core strength. Situps. Back-ups. Side twists, etc. Everything that will get your back supported by MUSCLES NOT BONES!
2. Stretches. Hamstring. Quads. Core twists. Each Knee hugged to chest separately. Psoas muscle stretch (figure “4”).
3. Lose weight. The leverage of a heavy frontal gut sack on your back is tremendous. Go to the gym and exercise all your muscles, and increase weights each visit until you can barely do the workout. Muscles burn fat. Also, nuke the carbs and focus on protein. The satiety “fullness” feature of humans is driven by whether a sufficient protein load is on board. Carbs will never make you full, will load up your blood sugar, be stored as fat in your gut, and will lever your back.
4. Walk. The back and hip joints through which your sciatic nerve pass are loosened up by walking.
I had 4 eggs and coffee for breakfast again today. I’m at the gym on the rowing machine during my 2 hour 5 day a week workout regimen. I’ll go home have fruit, nuts and cheese for lunch and go for a walk with my wife.
I can feel the spot where the sciatica flares up, and it is just under control each day. I avoid actual flare ups with the foregoing regimen. I haven’t had a significant flare up in 10 years. And it is nip and tuck nearly daily. You can fix this yourself. It is hard work.
During my 50s, I switched to a keto diet, avoiding almost all processed foods. Over time, my diet evolved to a pretty much pure carnivore diet (animal products only with only a small amount of fruits and vegetables).
I have not had back pain again and even in my 60s, I have zero problem getting out of bed, out of cars, etc.
Should also mention I try to walk an hour or two a day on average (10,000 plus steps).
When I went to the back doctor a decade ago, they MRIed me. Before the doctor had a chance to see the images, the 23 year old Associates Degree nobody was signing me up for back surgery!
I walked.
I’ve run into about 30 people in my life who have had back surgery. To my recollection, here are the outcomes:
2 Successes
10 No change
18 horrific worsening due to the surgery, with no prospect of ever getting back to their pre-suegery level of health.
My takeaway is never to go for the back surgery.
Yoga is a pretty good stand in for the stretches mentioned above, and you get lots of other benefits, not the least of which is the view from the back of the room.
You might consider going to a pain mgt doctor for radio frequency nerve ablation (nerves around SI joints have needles inserted (with numbing meds)) and then heated to burn out the nerves (they die off after 8 to 10 days) and take 6 to 18 months to regenerate and may not regenerate the same way and thus reduce or eliminate your pain while they are dead. Depending on your insurance though you may have to start with some injections, then a nerve block test, and if results are good, they can then go for the full RFA (if you want to pay cash out of pocket), you may be able to skip right to the RFA. I have been doing it every six months for low back pain and maybe every 18 to 24 months for cervical pain and it has helped greatly. I use to not be able to walk for more than five minutes without bad sciatica pain before treatment and after it has been world’s better. I can feel when it is time for a repeat procedure when the pain comes back (but usually far less than before treatment). Something for you to look into. It is done in a doc’s office under x-ray guidance and takes about 20 minutes or so. No real downside as far as I’m concerned other than a few minutes of pain as the doc inserts the needles but that is a small thing I happily endure to be able to walk again with only mild discomfort at times vs debilitating pain before treatment. You can find a doc to put you fully under for the procedure if you want but I and my doc think that is overkill and the local numbing stuff she does is always sufficient with just some sharp pain during the initial needle placement. YMMV but it has been a Godsend for me.
My sciatica pain significantly reduced when I added Norton 1/2 salt (Potassium salt mixed with regular salt). Also added a round pillow between my knees when I sleep.
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