What Is Sciatica?
Sciatica is a symptom rather than a condition; it refers to pain that is associated with the sciatic nerve. This nerve runs down the back of each of your legs from your lower back. The pain can range from mild to severe with common symptoms being tingling or numbness in the lower back, glutes and legs.
Causes of sciatica can vary; however, it is usually due to some impingement or pressure on the sciatic nerve due to a slipped disc.
Common causes include:
- Slipped disc
- The disc in between the bones on your spine move out of place and pushes against the sciatic nerve
- Spinal stenosis
- Narrowing of the spine where nerves pass through
- Spondylolisthesis
- One of your bones in your spine slips out of position
- Back injury
Overall, these can cause your nerve to be irritated. If you imagine a hose pipe, when this pipe is pinched or stretched the water flow is weakened. Your sciatic nerve is not that different from the hose pipe, with either your muscles or bones such as your spinal discs pinching your nerve. This can cause a restriction of the flow of information going resulting in pain running down the backs of your legs from your lower back.
How Can Physiotherapy Help With Sciatica?
Depending on what it is that is causing your sciatica, your treatment will vary. Physiotherapy can help you throughout your recovery and help you get to a stage where it is gone with no possibility of it reoccurring.
Once you have had your diagnosis, you can start your recovery with physiotherapy journey. Initially the clinician will work with you to get you out of pain, this will be done with hands on treatment, to help release the muscles which have either tightened due to pain from the sciatica or seized up and are causing the sciatica. Overall, this hands-on treatment will help you short term to gain some movement and function back. The next stage will be rebuilding your muscles and foundation, so the pain does not come back. This is done through a series of personalised exercises along with a movement screen. Your foundation movement patterns will be measured and used to create a plan.
As you progress and you are not in pain anymore, the next step will be rehabilitation. Your exercises will progress, so you are building up strength, whilst improving your foundation of movement. Reformer Pilates is also a great form of movement to rebuild your strength in a safe manner.
Watch the video below as Paul explains in a bit more detail about how physiotherapy can help with sciatica.Â
Please get in touch with us if you have any questions or if you are struggling with sciatica, we can help you get out of pain and get you moving better.