wHAT IS SCIATICA?
Sciatica is a term that depicts pain in the lower back, hip, and lower extremities. It is caused by irritation, inflammation, compression, or tensions in the sciatic nerve root. The pain usually starts in the low back and radiates down to the toes and it is unilateral pain most of the time meaning that one leg is affected.
What is the sciatic nerve?
The sciatic nerve is the largest branch of the Lumbosacral plexus and is formed by anterior and posterior divisions of nerve roots L4, L5, S1, S2, S3. It innervates the posterior side of the Thigh, the leg, and the foot. The Sciatic nerve goes down through greater sciatic foramen, just deep to Gluteus Maximus muscle, and then passes through the piriformis muscle and finds its way down through the Adductor Magnus muscle and the hamstrings. It divides into 2 branches at the Thigh, Tibial and peroneal, and some other branches right after the popliteal fossa like genicular, sural, and …
symptoms of sciatica or sciatica pain
- Pain: burning sensation, radiating pain or even excruciating pain, shooting down from the low back and posterior hip towards the feet
- Numbness: tingling, burning sensation, or weakness in the toes and lower leg
- unilateral symptoms: usually one leg is affected, but it’s possible to impact both legs
- postural symptoms: pain when sitting and lying down, while it gets better when you walk
what causes sciatica?
Any compression, stenosis, irritation or trauma on its way can ignite sciatica. The causes are divided into different categories as below:
- Bulging or herniation in disks
- Stenosis in the lumbar spine
- Spondylolisthesis
- Muscular issues as we see in the piriformis syndrome
- Sacroiliac joint dysfunctions
- Tumors and lesions
How to diagnose Sciatica
First step is to see your family doctor. They can diagnose the source of pain and then you can start treatment under their supervision.
Osteopathy for Sciatica pain
Osteopathy is a great holistic treatment that applies different approaches to heal your pain. Osteopathy is a gentle manual therapy that holds to the theory that the human body is capable to heal itself and hence Nerve entrapment and compression can be treated through a variety of techniques in Osteopathy. An experienced manual osteopath relieves your pain by decreasing tension and compression in the nerve route. The manual Osteopath mitigates the irritation and inflammation by mobilizing the nerve, joints, muscles, and soft tissues as well as bringing more blood circulation to the affected area to force the body to start repairing itself.
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