For many people, one of the most common physical ailments they can suffer from is muscle and joint pain. Often, it can feel like a pinched nerve – sending a small jolt through the body every time you move. Other times, it can stem from more serious nerve damage. Many times, though, the back problems that you are dealing with shall be related to the sciatic nerve. When this is damaged, it can often be whittled down to a condition known as sciatica.
Sciatica treatment is possible, but the problem is that many people don’t really know where to start. Often, we try out small lifestyle adjustments that end up making the problem worse, not better!
If you want to know how to correctly treat sciatica, we have some ideas for you to try out below. This should, in time, help you to deal with that problematic pinched nerve that is causing you so many problems and issues.
What is sciatica?
Naturally, before you can get any sciatica treatment you have to first make sure this is the problem that you are suffering from. If you are suffering from sciatica, then you will often find that you have issues in your buttocks, the backs of your legs, or even your feet/toes. The pain is not always necessarily a directly sore pain like a physical bang – it’s often more like a shooting, burning sensation.
This is deeply uncomfortable. Often, it will leave you feeling quite weak in these joints. They might even suffer from a kind of numb, tingling feeling – almost like that most horrid of feelings; pins and needles. If you worry that you have sciatica, then you should also notice issues with back pain – though not quite as intense as the pain in the other three mentioned areas, it should/could still be present.
However, if you only have back pain, then sciatica treatment might not be what you need. Sciatica is often accidentally presumed to be part of a back problem, with the other pains coming as a consequence of that back pain. In reality, it is the other way around; your back pain is a symptom of the pain felt elsewhere.
The cause of sciatica can be quite unique for each person, but it often stems from a singular injury. The most common cause is a slipped disc in the back, which can happen when a soft cushion of tissue that is between the bone is pushed out of place. Despite not being the primary point of pain for sciatica, back injuries are often the most common cause outside of a slipped disc.
The cause often has to be diagnosed so that you can then go about administering the right kind of lifestyle changes and treatments, though.
Does sciatica treatment work naturally?
Like many physical ailments, you can often find that a bit of rest and recuperation can be all that you need to solve the problem. For many of us, sciatica treatment will not be necessary: the problem will often relieve itself within a 4-6 week period. However, it can last for longer. If you wish to try and lift the issue on your own, though, there are some things that you could try if you wish to lift the issue. These include:
- Making sure that you don’t stop being physically active: if you allow yourself to start minimising activity and/or seizing up, then you will only start to make the problem worse, not better.
- Begin to regularly stretch out your back. That Pinched Nerve could need a lot of extra durability and dexterity, so make sure that you put in the time needed to help that part of your body stretch out properly.
- Invest in some heat packs if you can. Put these on the areas that feel the most uncomfortable; the heat from the pack can help to translate into the issue and give it a bit of extra rest and recovery.
- Avoid sitting down for extensive periods of time. Sciatica is going to hurt even when you move, but you have to move through the pain if you wish to one day overcome the pain and the stress that you feel from this particular issue.
- Avoid using hot water bottles – use heat packs instead. Due to the numbing nature of the sciatica problem that you face, you could end up burning or scorching yourself without even knowing it. That is a common mistake that a lot of people make.
If you find that none of the above treatments are of positive benefit to you, then you should probably look to get some medical care. Book up an appointment with your doctor, and you should be able to help combat the pain you feel via sciatica.
Useful sciatica treatments
If you wish to try and combat the problem that you face with sciatica, then we have some basic ideas that you should look into as soon as you can. Some of the most common stretches that might help out your sciatica symptoms include:
- Knee to opposite shoulder stretches.
- Sitting pigeon pose stretches.
- Standing hamstring stretches.
- Sitting spinal stretches.
There are various other different stretches to think about, too, but the above four stretches should go some way to stretching out key muscle groups impacted from sciatica. This is going to go a long way to making sure that your body feels good and can retain some sense of balance and physical strength.
As ever, you should always look to enlist professional medical help if you worry that the problem is not going to get any better. You should not simply put up with the issue; look for medical care ASAP. Try out some of the ideas we have listed for you here, though, and you should soon find that overcoming sciatica is not quite the immense issue it might seem.
All it takes are some lifestyle changes and you can soon leave the pain and stress of sciatica behind.
