Sciatica is a common nerve pain that usually appears in the piriformis glute muscle. These can appear in people that sit alot and tend to be overweight since the spine is technically a vertical crane carrying the counterweights, which are your muscles. The weight you carry in the front of your body is what your spine needs to lift. So the more weight a person has there, the back muscles are more so stressed and have to work. This can usually lead to back strains, pains, and other similar back issues.
However, sciatica can also flare up for those working in very active, physical jobs with alot of glut, hamstring and hip flexor repetitive use. It is the repetitive compression of soft tissue around the sciatic nerve path that leads to the nerve being simply squeezed too much to interrupt the pathway, leading to tingling, numbness , sensation of burning down the leg and sometimes even into the calf and big toe.
Not moving enough, extra weight and overuse of the posterior glut and hamstring muscles without recovery can increase the risk of sciatica.
Sciatica Pain Symptoms
The symptoms of such pains are usually felt along the path of the large sciatic nerve. The pains may be characterized by feeling one or more symptoms. The first is the most obvious, Sciatica pain can usually be described as something similar to a constant burning sensation or a shooting pain that starts all the way in the lower back or buttock then and radiating down the front or back of the thigh and leg or feet.
Aside from the pain, there is can also be the possibility of feeling numbness that can be located in the back of the leg. This can vary as some may feel some sort of tingling and/or weakness instead. At times, these symptoms may feel worse when in a specific posture, for example, while sitting, trying to stand up, bending the spine forward, twisting the spine, lying down, and/or while coughing. Only one leg is usually affected, causing a feeling of heaviness on the affected leg, but on rare occasions, both legs may be affected.
Sciatica Treatment
I treat Sciatica frequently, a lot of patients I treat go through dry needling and active release muscle work. There are also some Sciatica exercises to help with the nerve freeing up such as sciatica nerve flossing, piriformis, lower back and hamstring stretches- but the most surprising efficacious exercise I‘ve given which has helped is bizarrely rolling foot fascia with a lacrosse ball. Honestly has helped many clients and it works by helping to relax to posterior chain of muscles from the base of foot upwards to your lower back.
Ive found these exercises to be super helpful with lower back pain and sciatica symptoms.
Get in touch today if you would like to sort out your sciatica issues with a combined treatment and stretch therapy session. :-)
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