Sciatica: What No One Is Telling You
sci·at·i·ca
sīˈadəkə/noun
Pain affecting the back, hip, and outer side of the leg, caused by compression of a spinal nerve root in the lower back, often owing to degeneration of an intervertebral disk.
Above is the definition of sciatica. I hear tales of people self-diagnosing sciatica or going to the doctor, describing the pain and being handed a diagnosis of sciatica along with a prescription (or a few) for pain meds and prescriptions for the side effects of the pain meds.
What they are not being told is that there’s anything else possible that can help other than medicate the pain. I am not here to tell you medicine is bad. Because it’s not. I am so thankful for it.
I’m here to tell you about another option that perhaps you didn’t know existed.
SOMETIMES SCIATICA IS NOT… SCIATICA
In my personal experience, 9 out of 10 active people who said they have sciatica actually have something called piriformis syndrome.
You may be asking yourself, “What is piriformis syndrome? I’ve never even heard of that.”
Piriformis is a deep muscle located closer to the skeleton than gluteus maximus. The sciatic nerve runs along or through the piriformis muscle, depending on your particular build. Due to habituated hyper-external rotation of the hip, misalignments in the hips and lower back pain, sometimes ovarian tenderness, can cause the piriformis to tighten so much that it puts pressure on the sciatic nerve, thus inducing tingling, numbness, shooting pain and other odd sensations down the leg and perhaps into the feet. Just as people with sciatica describe this pain, people with piriformis syndrome experience near enough to the same pain, eliciting a diagnosis of sciatica because the sciatic nerve is affected.
Sometimes piriformis syndrome (“PS”) happens because of running with the ankle shifting one way or another or other repetitive motion where the foot is turned out slightly. In the case of Jordan, a runner and former hockey player, bought new running shoes, which caused his ankle to pronate, ended up with what he thought was sciatica but was actually piriformis syndrome. The design of his shoes caused him to put more pressure through inside of the left foot and leg and caused his piriformis to overwork. It was such a small difference, he had no idea that was happening and ended up with sciatic nerve pain.
When we worked together on releasing the piriformis, the pain went away!
Then he trimmed his hedges and overworked it by leaning forward consistently and was in pain again so I showed him to stand so he didn’t put pressure on piriformis. (I call this occupational movement.) I also gave him some postures to practice so he would strengthen the weaker area of the hip in order to take pressure off piriformis and the sciatic nerve on a more permanent basis.
And he hasn’t had trouble since.
One of the first things to do is become aware of the foot and hip alignment while walking, running, standing or doing any other repetitive motion and work to understand and correct the alignment so PS doesn’t reoccur.
Then imagine you’ve just finished an on-stage performance and are bowing for your adoring audience. Take a deep curtsey with the painful leg in front and then place your fingertips on the floor and stick your bum out way behind you. Now add a very big twist toward the side of the leg in front and reach into the back corner of your bum. I call it Fosse, after the choreographer.
There are other exercises to do to keep this from happening again and the one above will get you started now.
Regardless of whether you have sciatica coming from swelling in the nerve root or if you have piriformis syndrome, there are back and hip stretches that will help relieve the pain and strength-building exercises to help the joints become permanently strong in weak areas in order to keep the hips in alignment for the long haul.
With the right moves you can keep your body aligned, build joint strength in your hips, become more flexible, strong and (most importantly) pain-free. And you can always work with your doctor to support you in your optimum health and wellness.
©2023 MoveWell
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