sciatica??

[TimmayB4]

My left side of my body has been killing me for the last few months.. I finally went to the dr the other day and he said I had sciatica..

been taking some meds he gave but not really helpping..

I was wonder if anyone else here had, had that before or knows much about it... what helped the pain or got rid of it?? its KILLING ME...

Thanks
Tim

[LawnTamer]

I had a huge problem similar to yours. For me it was Pyriformis syndrome. That is where the pyriformis muscle, (a muscle on your butt) becomes inflamed and aggravates the sciatic nerve. It caused pain all down my left leg, sometimes it would radiate into my right side too. Not to be crude, and I hope I won't get made fun of too much, but my butt was killing me. It hurt so bad and so deep, I wondered if I had bone cancer in my hip or something. I could barely walk. It started messing with my whole nervous system, there are other nerve bundles that go through the pyriformis. I had urinary tract problems, pain, numbness in my left leg, all sorts of stuff.

I went to 2 Docs and a specialist, none of them figured it out, the specialist thought it might be my pyriformis. They put me on all sorts of drugs, Celebrex helped the most. I also got cortisone shots in my back side. It all helped, but not much.

One day out of sheer desperation, I went to my neighbor, who is a chiropractor. It was Sunday, I was in pain and didn't want to wait till Monday to see a Dr. I didn't tell him what any of the other docs had said, just told him my symptoms, he examined me in his living room for a while, (way nice guy). After about 10 minutes he says, "This is easy, your pyriformis muscle is tight and inflamed, it is constricting on your sciatic nerve bundle. I'll help you stretch it tonight, come to my office tomorrow and we'll work on it more." He showed me a stretch called the pyriformis stretch. If your symptoms are like mine google it! We stretched it for about 10 minutes and I noticed a small difference. I went to his office everyday for a week, he would stretch my pyriformis and use his elbow to grind down into the muscle till it would release.

Long story short, after a week I stopped taking celebrex. If I am good about doing my stretches, I do very well, it gets a little sore after a long day, or if I sit on a hard surface for a long time. But it is something I can live with now. Not a big deal. I haven't taken meds for it in about 18 months.

I have a lot more info on this. Are your symptoms like mine? Does your backside hurt? Do you have pain like deep in your hip socket? Does that pain radiate down your leg and up your back?

I was honestly amazed that most docs know very little about this, they deal with colds, flu, stitches all sorts of stuff, this is a fairly common thing, but most docs won't diagnose it correctly. Their treatment answers were all drug therapies. It feels so much better just to have the problem fixed.
Good luck- feel free to respond here, or to PM me if you think you may have something similar.

Here is a link about Pyriformis syndrome
http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/piri.html

[44DCNF]

The above stretch is one of the key exercises that helped my sciatica. Another is a hip flexor stretch. I had tight hip flexors from sitting behind the wheel for long hours, causing the pinching of the nerve as it passes through the clearance between the sacrum and illium. To do this stretch, stand and imagine an arrow shooting straight forward out of you naval....take a step forward with one foot. This rocks your pelvis and now that arrow would be aiming at the ground a few feet in front of you. Now stretch the hip flexors by bringing the pelvis back into line so that the imaginary arrow is pointing straight forward or level again. You will feel the stretch above the thigh of your rear leg. It sure helps me in my situation, but every injury is different. Search MacKenzie program here and you should find a recent thread on back injuries. Those exercises might help too. I think it is spelled without the a, but I used a wrong spelling in my post.

[Buddy Buds]

My bro-in-law is a chiropractor. I had the same problem and did the stretches and it helped a lot. The thing that help most was the controller of a business that I did business with. He knew I always had a lot of cash on because of the nature of our business. Told me to move it out of my hip pocket. I did and it only took about two days for the nerves to quit bothering me and about four days for the bruising to go away. I'm serious about this. My big Tractor was beating my butt to peices.:confused:

[LawnTamer]

My bro-in-law is a chiropractor. I had the same problem and did the stretches and it helped a lot. The thing that help most was the controller of a business that I did business with. He knew I always had a lot of cash on because of the nature of our business. Told me to move it out of my hip pocket. I did and it only took about two days for the nerves to quit bothering me and about four days for the bruising to go away. I'm serious about this. My big Tractor was beating my butt to peices.:confused:

Yes, I forgot to mention this, very important.

From my experience, and others I have talked to, my #1 piece of advice would be to find and fix the muscular problem that is aggravating the sciatic nerve. All most doctors wanted to do for me was give me something for pain, or something for inflammation and move on to the next patient. Once you find the real problem and fix it, the pain and soreness will go away.

As embarrassing as it is to me, I know there are others who have this problem, I think trimming contributes to it. It is hard to describe how to do the piriformis stretch properly. Here is a pic. You see how my legs are crossed, in this photo I am stretching the left side of my hip, I place my left ankle on my right knee, then I pull back on the right leg with my hands, pull back till it hurts a little, hold for 5-10 seconds, relax, then repeat. Try to pull it a little harder each time. FYI, it will likely feel a little worse right after you do this stretch, that will go away, and within a few days the pain usually goes way down.

120033

Again, I am not a Dr, but this did wonders for me, and a few others I have come across with the same problems.