Can anyone here who suffers with sciatica tell me what they do to ease the pain?

[LibGranny]

I've tried ice, alleve, and chiropractic and all help some but not all the time. At times I have to use a walker to
get around the house! I'm usually very active (walk 2-3 miles daily) but on sciatica days, no can do! I'd appreciate any suggestions!

[Warpy]

1. Ice and mild exercise are the best ones

but you have to leave that ice on for the full 20 minutes. What you might want to do is go to an orthopedic doctor and get a referral to physical therapy. They can work wonders giving you targeted exercises for the pain. They can also issue things like TENS units that deliver mild electroshock to the skin and jumble the pain signals so that you're more comfortable.

Surgery is the last resort, to get rid of the bit of disc that is pressing on the nerve root but the recovery is difficult and the outcome not 100%, so surgeons usually want you to go through a course of physical therapy, first.

Good physical therapy with patient follow up on the exercises can often delay surgery by years.

Once that back pain starts to radiate down the leg, it's time to stop chiropractic treatments and find an orthopedist.

Good luck!

[LibGranny]

2. Thanks for the reply but even though I have health insurance,

it does not cover PT!

[Warpy]

3. See whether or not it will break the bank

because it's worth its weight in gold.

The only other real choice (except drugging up and living with it) is surgery, something that would cost probably 10 times what a few weeks of rehab would and you'd need rehab after it.

Insurance companies, penny wise and pound foolish forever.

[Nay]

4. Is is transient sciatica, or has the doc determined that it is permanent because of a disc or

whatever? I ask because I had transient sciatica and, as a breast cancer patient, had been warned that any constant bone or nerve pain should immediately be reported to my oncologist. Needless to say, I went screaming on down to the doc's office to make sure the cancer hadn't come back. It hadn't, and I was diagnosed with transient sciatica.

If it's transient, try changing the chair(s) you sit in. Unbelievably, this is all it took for my sciatica to go away completely. My computer chair was causing it! That chair is now at Goodwill! It can be hard to find a chair that's truly comfortable because you have to sit in it for a few hours (not just a few minutes in the store) to be able to determine whether it's comfortable for YOU long-term. I was lucky - my upstairs office chair is comfy and once I sat in that for ONE DAY, the sciatica went away. I hope it's that easy for you. I totally understand the pain you're in and hope you can resolve it.

My husband has been suffering from back pain for two years and just now has gone to the doc (yeah, it's true that men won't go to the doc until they are on the floor) over back, leg, and knee pain. The neurologist says it's a back muscle problem that has been left unaddressed too long (imagine that! ). Physical therapy has been a godsend, but his insurance covers it. He is getting better month by month. One of the treatments he is told to do at home is 20 minutes of heat, then some stretching, then 20 minutes of ice, a couple of times a day. At PT, he also always gets the TENS unit treatment; they are available to buy for home use, and you may want to rent one from a medical supply store to see if it helps before you buy one.

Good luck to you! Back pain really wears a person down.

[LibGranny]

5. Thanks for your response! I'll look into a TENS unit as my husband used one when he

had knee surgery. Any kind of surgery for me is OUT OF THE QUESTION! I believe the pain is transient and I'm now looking at my computer chair in a different light! LoL

[Nay]

6. It's worth a try to change the chair. I was gobsmacked when the pain went away in

ONE DAY.

[ballardgirl]

7. First, identify the cause

if you have a bulging/slipped disk, look into the mckenzie method, which consists of exercises, posture changes and nighttime back support. There is good information online (this is good for back and neck pain). I found some relief from this, but eventually had surgery to scrape off arthritic bone that was compressing the nerve. This was after two different types of PT and everything else under the sun. Everyone was treating me for disk issues, but that was not the correct diagnosis in my case. My surgery was minimally invasive and the recovery was no big deal. I will have nerve issues for the rest of my life, but can live with that level of pain.

[womanofthehills]

8. Exercise and stretching

can almost stop it for me along with Advil