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All good posts.
I have not seen anyone mention the piriformis muscle.
Look that up to see it...the sciatic n. runs underneath it (usually).
When it gets spasmed or just tight it really hurts the sciatic n.
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Good point. i didn't want to get too detailed in my earlier post. The obturator and pyriformis are muscles in the hip- pelvis whose purpose is not so much to move anything but rather to just hold things in place while the bigger muscles (glutes/hamstings/quads and psoas) do the heavy work.
In a significantly large minority of people, the sciatic nerve is actually split so that one part of it runs THRU the pyriformis, so any time that muscle goes into spasm from injury or fatigue, it pinches the nerve.
If that's the case, then proper PT, exercise, attention to body mechanics, including possibly wearing a lift in the shoe for "short leg syndrome" may help alleviate & prevent problems.
My experience at old age. Horrible pain across lower and upper back and down legs. Had to use walker or crawl to bathroom. Went to chiropractor, said it was sciatica, wasted time and money for 3 months. Chiropractor gave up and recommended a pain management doctor/clinic. Pain doctor got me an MRI. MRI showed severe arthritis and loss of cartilage between all lower joints and stenosis of spine. Said it was bone on bone creating pain. Doc gave me series of injections on one side (lower back/hip area) then another series of injections on the other side. Got off the medical table and immediately walked out of the office with absolutely no pain and stored the walker in the closet at home.
What was in the injections? You left out the crucial information!
I'll keep an eye on this thread & want to read through all the posts, but in the meantime, my SO has lower back pain & pretty minor moves seem to hurt him. He knows it's from years of manual labor being in the warehousing industry & once yrs ago, his no-good, loser father (whom has nothing to do w/ anymore) came up unexpectedly behind him & grabbed him hard & he heard his back pop. He said he could barely walk for a couple days after.
My SO's pretty stubborn about going to the dr though & I've told him several times to see what's going on. He thinks a dr can do nothing about it, but he apparently has no idea what options are out there. He seems to think either surgery or chiropractors are the only solutions, which he wants neither. He almost got an x-ray once at urgent care, but the x-ray machine was down or something so they said to come back later...he never did.
So I had your basic, annoying sciatica for about a week. Then three weeks ago it turned really nasty. I can barely walk, even with a walker. My left leg drags because it hurts too much to lift it in trying to walk. I've been to the chiropractor for 8 sessions so far and so far no relief. I've been trying to get into a spine clinic but a computer shutdown makes them unavailable. I'm supposed to start physical therapy next week and do exercises - really? Hopefully I will be getting an MRI and I can get into a pain management clinic and get epidurals. Or maybe I'll get lucky and they'll just stick a needle in my brain and get it over with.
I've gone through 20 tablets of oxycodone in 10 days with another prescription for 40 more. One pill just mitigates the pain enough so I can get out of bed and do things like wash up, throw something in the microwave, maybe get to the store. I can't clean or cook at this point. Two pills allow me to get to the library and get on the computer to complain here about it.
The pain starts in my butt, goes down the back of my thigh, behind the knee, the back of the calf, and now is hurting me in the ankle and in the arch of my foot.
My life is just basically on hold till this $(*^ goes away.
Everybody I know has had or knows someone who has had sciatica.
So what have your experiences been and how the H E double hockey sticks long does it take to go away?
Absolutely get MRI. I wasted months and hundreds/thousands in co-pays getting PT and myofascial release when my sciatica was just starting. 6 months in, I woke up unable to move, agonizing pain I had never imagined was possible. It felt like someone had come in and smashed every bone in my left lower leg with a sledgehammer. It was unrelenting, the most horrible months of my life. I had an SI joint injection and 4 epidurals, none helped at all.
I ended up getting an L4-L5 laminectomy, and quite literally it saved my life. 6 hours after I went into the hospital for the procedure, I was walking up the stairs to me apartment in half the pain I had been in, and within 2 weeks, none at all.
I don't know what kind of spine clinic it is, but you should be going to an orthopedic surgeon, not a rehab type place. Even if you don't need surgery, you need a doctor who is an expert on the spine and he/she will be. Get the MRI, know what exactly you are dealing with, before continuing any treatments. I am mad I spent so much on treatments that didn't help, all because they sent me to them without doing an MRI first.
So far I've had good results with the clinic's physical therapy department and home exercises. It was important that she walked through all the exercises with me to make sure I was doing them the correct way. It's surprising how I could misinterpret them from only looking at the handout.
My largest problem is how easy it is to start neglecting them after I've felt okay for a while. It's a lifestyle change not a temporary fix.
If my condition changes then I'll have to find the next solution. I certainly was grateful to be shown a way that I could make an improvement.
I know I concentrate more know on how I walk, stand, sit, squat, etc. A thought before action seems to help. An acquaintance of mine told me one day that I walked like someone who had a pain problem. I laughed and corrected her. "No, I walk like someone who's afraid they could have a pain problem."
I have to admit, I posted here as a rant and I was more interested in seeing what everyone else had done for their sciatica. But to clear up a few things, first, I am a she *waves* and I should let people know that while I don't have any back pain at this point, I have a horrific backbone.
I have scoliosis in that it turns in a C shape and in the recent Xray you can see that the lower 5 discs have been compressed to the point of almost being fused in themselves. I also have some arthritis in my back. My back has also been bothering me for years, but strangely, I've had no pain while I've had the sciatica. But trust me, this is not a substitution I want forever. lol
I'm waaaay beyond the muscle relaxers. I'm taking gabapentin twice a day, but mainly I'm using the oxycodone twice a day as well. As I said, one pill will mitigate the pain to the point where I may be able to actually do something. For instance, it allows me to stand and walk without assistance for maybe a whole minute before I'm forced to sit down and ease the pain.
I've heard good things about acupuncture. My pain may actually get me over my fear of needles.
I stopped with the chiropractor mainly because the sciatica had been getting worse while seeing him. Now I'm concerned with the pain going down the left side of my ankle because I have a plate and eight screws there and I can feel them hurting. The spine clinic I hope to go to are the same people who did the surgery on my broken ankle, so I'll ask them about this on Monday. Their computer system is still not up, though.
I know surgery is a crapshoot. I've heard both good and bad things about it, so I guess we'll try everything else and then look at surgery.
The idea of a sports chiropractor is a good one. I always try to get people to go to sports doctors, so I don't know why I didn't think of that to begin with. My friend had a degenerating disc in her back and went to a regular doctor who had her on bedrest and bedrest and more bedrest, which did nothing for her. A sports doctor had her exercising and swimming in a pool. My friend was a competitive horseback rider and was back in the saddle winning races after seeing the sports doctor.
But it's heartening to read everyone's replies. Not that I'm happy you all are or were in pain. It's just nice to know I'm not the only one suffering. Thank you all for your advice.
Absolutely get MRI. I wasted months and hundreds/thousands in co-pays getting PT and myofascial release when my sciatica was just starting. 6 months in, I woke up unable to move, agonizing pain I had never imagined was possible. It felt like someone had come in and smashed every bone in my left lower leg with a sledgehammer. It was unrelenting, the most horrible months of my life. I had an SI joint injection and 4 epidurals, none helped at all.
I ended up getting an L4-L5 laminectomy, and quite literally it saved my life. 6 hours after I went into the hospital for the procedure, I was walking up the stairs to me apartment in half the pain I had been in, and within 2 weeks, none at all.
I don't know what kind of spine clinic it is, but you should be going to an orthopedic surgeon, not a rehab type place. Even if you don't need surgery, you need a doctor who is an expert on the spine and he/she will be. Get the MRI, know what exactly you are dealing with, before continuing any treatments. I am mad I spent so much on treatments that didn't help, all because they sent me to them without doing an MRI first.
^^^This. OP, be very careful with a sciatica self-diagnosis. It sounds easy to identify, but exercises designed for sciatica may be counterproductive if it turns out to be spondylosis or spinal stenosis. Only an MRI can determine where the pain originates. Best of luck.
Thank you. I did see a doctor who diagnosed it as sciatica and an MRI is next on the list. Our biggest problem right now is to find a medical facility that isn't on the same network as all the other hospitals, Urgent Cares, and ERs in this area that have had their internet system hacked or disrupted. It's a mess and I'm just praying I don't have to go into the ER anytime soon.
Thank you. I did see a doctor who diagnosed it as sciatica and an MRI is next on the list. Our biggest problem right now is to find a medical facility that isn't on the same network as all the other hospitals, Urgent Cares, and ERs in this area that have had their internet system hacked or disrupted. It's a mess and I'm just praying I don't have to go into the ER anytime soon.
The MRI will tell you more about it. Sciatica just means your Sciatic nerve is being compressed. You need to know exactly what level, and what else is going on in there. For instance my MRI showed the herniated discs compressing the nerve, but also spinal stenosis and a spinal cyst.
I feel like I made mine worse by going to certain treatments and even some of the exercising I did early on to try to correct it. For instance I did yoga a lot then and only after my diagnosis did I learn trunk flexion is contraindicated for people with certain spinal integrity problems. So all the down dog felt good at the time but probably made it worse. The sooner you can get the MRI the better IMO.
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