sciaticpain

About 85 percent of the population will experience disabling low back pain at least once during their lives! That's almost all of us. The problem is so bad that at any one time, according to one researcher, 6.8% of the U.S. Adult population is suffering from an episode of back pain lasting more than two weeks. That's a lot of bad backs. The estimated cost of this problem in the U.S. Is over $50 billion a year.

Your sciatic nerve is the longest and largest nerve in your body. It is made up of five roots that leave your low back, join in the pelvic area and then travel down your leg to the muscles and joints of the thigh, knee, calf, ankle, foot and toes.

What is Sciatica?
When the sciatica nerve is inflamed the condition is called sciatica (pronounced si' ad-a' ka). And the pain can be intense! It usually follows the path of nerve - the back of the legs and thighs, ankle, foot and toes - but it can also radiate to your back. Along with burning, sharp pains, strange nerve sensations called parasthesia (pins and needles, tingling, prickling, crawling sensations, or tenderness) may also be felt. Ironically, the leg might also feel numb! To complicate matters, the location of sciatica pain may vary. Although it's usually in the back of the legs or thighs, in some people the pain is in the front or side of the legs or sometimes it's in the hips. For some the pain is in both legs: bilateral sciatica!

Like a Knife!!
The quality of the pain may vary as well. There may be constant throbbing but then it may let up for hours or even days; it may ache, or be knife-life. Sometimes postural changes, like lying down or changing positions, affect the pain and sometimes they don't. In severe cases, sciatica can cause a loss of reflexes or even a wasting of the calf muscles. The pain associated with sciatica is described as a pain radiating from the low back into the buttock radiating down the posterior of the leg. It may radiate all the way down into the ankle or cause numbness or tingling.
For sciatica sufferers, a good night's sleep may be a thing of the past. Simple things like walking, bending, turning, sitting, or standing up can be difficult or impossible.

Causes of Sciatica
Sciatica is an irritation to the sciatic nerve caused by direct pressure on the nerve or by pressure on the nerve roots (from the fifth lumbar and first two sacral nerve roots) that give rise to the sciatic nerve. Pressure on the nerve roots can be a result of a subluxation (a misalignment of the vertebrae in the spine) or from a herniated disc. Direct pressure can may stem from pressure on the sciatic nerve by the piriformis muscle (a hip rotator deep to the buttock muscles). Like most other conditions, sciatica has a wide variety of causes but a misaligned spine, a protruded or ruptured disc can irritate the sciatic nerve causing sciatica. Sciatica has been reported following accidents, injuries and even childbirth, usually due to spinal misalignment. However, advanced diabetes can also cause sciatic nerve irritation, as can arthritis, constipation, tumors and even vitamin deficiencies.

In determining where the irritation is originating from through a thorough examination, our office can recommend a course of treatment to usually resolve this condition easily and fairly quickly. In more complicated cases where there is disc involvement the patient is generally referred out for an MRI (a non-invasive diagnostic imaging procedure that produces a three dimensional image of the spine).

Spinal manipulation, flexion distraction therapy a are typically used to address the sciatic irritation. As the patient improves, progressive resistance exercises are given to the patient. Patient's who do respond within the expected time period (typically less than 3 weeks) are evaluated by an orthopedist or neurologist our office works with to give us a second opinion. In our office we take a team approach to healthcare.