Sciatica

What is Sciatica?  Sciatica is a nerve pain that's caused by an irritation to the sciatic nerve. The nerve starts at the back, radiates deep in the buttock and runs along both legs to the feet.

 

“Sciatica” can be a group of symptoms or just one. Typically people feel:

• Pain - burning, sharp or shooting back pain that may radiate down one or both legs

• Numbness - down the back of the leg or towards the feet, on one or both sides. You might also be experiencing weakness or tingling.

• One sided or both sided symptoms - feelings of heaviness into the legs.

• Posture induced symptoms - may feel worse sitting, transitioning from sit to stand, bending forward or rotation of the spine, lying down or coughing.

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Sciatica can be relieved with gentle movement including walking, heat packs and manual therapy. It can be caused by many reasons including disc pathology to the low back, spinal stenosis, degeneration to the joints or discs of the back and may include muscle spasm of the back and buttock muscles. Your osteopath will take a thorough history, understand the reasons WHY this is happening and provide measures to help manage this condition to avoid recurrence.