Sciatica treatments
 

OK, been suffering from lower back pain and sciatica on and off for over 20 years but the sciatica has got really bad the last couple of weeks!

I am only getting by on Vicodin and Flexoril at night as otherwise I want to saw my leg off at the hip. I am looking at preventative measures as well as Acupunture, acupressure, epidural steroid shots, etc. Just NO surgery!!!!!

Any hints or tips from the medically educated/employed out there as well as folks who have/are suffering from this??

Its driving me nuts so any help is appreciated:thumbup:

You need eval with ortho. Probably aggressive physical therapy.
I use some natural stuff and got off the drugs to help the spasm.
Ice your lower back at the end of a hard day.
The stuff I use is at www.athleticwellness.com, onthe front page.
FLEXIBILITY>

although it wasn't a chronic issue, my wife's accupunture seemed to do the trick.

Wow! I want to try that.

I had the same problem about 5 years ago. Went to a chiropractor for about a year, and he gave me exercises to do. After a few months the pain went away, but I still do the exercises.

He explained that the problem is not the pain -- that is only the symptom. If you only look for solutions to get rid of the pain (i.e. accupunture), it will only get worse over time. You need to get some kind of theropy so that your vertebrae in your lower back move back into proper position. The sciatica pain is occuring because 2 vertebrae are too close to eachother and are rubbing together and pinching the sciatica nerve. If this condition is left untreated, it will eventually become irreversable.

Also can be Sciatic outlet occlusion.

I had an epidural steroid injection (2 actually) to reduce the inflammation, in conjunction with therapy.

The epidural results (the first one) were immediate. The second took a little longer, but worked well also.

It's an easy procedure. My doc knoocked me out for it. It seemed like it was over before it started.

Once the inflammation (and major pain) was relieved, it made therapy much more productive. I was in so much pain, therapy was useless at first.

Thanks for the info guys.

My neighbours an anesthesiologist and he is recommending the same as my physician - get an MRI before you do anything to assess the damage. My last physician in CA did an MRI 7 years ago and recommended an MRI every 5 years to track any changes but of course my wonderful PPO is looking for em to do PT. I did get them down from 8 weeks of PT to 4 but with my flight schedule its like trying to squeeze a quarter into a dime slot!

I am leaning towards the epidural at the moment but definitly want to explore all of the problem management options as well to minimize this wonderful problem as I get older.

I had an MRI first, to see how bad the damage was.

My back had hurt for awhile (only a couple months), then one day, the pain in my back, hip and leg was so bad that I couldn't move, and I had to take an ambulance ride to the hospital.

After that, I had the MRI. Then one epidural, PT, another epidural, and more PT.

A couple months later, it's much better, but I'm much more careful too.

One of my family member had sciatica pain in leg and back...tried several medicines but none worked....finally accupuncture treatment fixed it.