ADVICE NEEDED! Anybody suffer from sciatica?

[downstownlady]

OMG...It sounds as if we are all suffering from the same thing.

I have 5 ruptured disc, and sciatica...in fact I am flat on my back with my laptop ready to pull my hair out. 2 chiropractors, 3 Pain Mgmt., 1 neurosurgeon (who said due to the Fybro he would prefer I saw a pain mgmt/physiologist), they want to send to ortho but I am going to try 1 more pain mgmt guy. 3 steroid shots/and some other needle proceedure...countless mri's, emg's. Pain meds out the wazoo...but with 3 kids, I just can't do them, and I can barely stand on most occassions to do the bare necessities. I don't know what to do either. Heat/Cold every 15 minutes and a tens unit. I will say the tens unit has helped some...but you can overuse it. I was so desperate I literally spent 200 dollars on a accupunture kit, and when it got here, everything was in chinese...

duh...pain makes you dumb!!!

 

[Up-the-Creek]

I have no good advice either. I have been suffering with it since my early twentys. At this point it is getting much worse and nothing seems to help. I need to go back to my doc and get something done. Just out of the blue this evening my leg went numb and have excrutiating pain in my lower back, butt, and hip. It is like zero to sixty all the time,..

 

[JetBlack]

1. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart.

2. Turn the foot that's attached to the hurting glute, inward. Point it at the inside of the other foot.

3. Rotate your torso away, like you are trying to wrench the knee, on the sciatica side. (You are making the twist, on that leg more pronounced.)

4. Hold for ten seconds.

There may be no sensation of stretching or pulling. That's fine.

When you straighten up again, let me know if the pain has subsided or disappeared. This stretch should provide almost immediate relief and may need to be repeated, until the pain disappears permanently.

 

[gumamelachick]

I suffered from sciatica for months after I injured myself incorrectly lifting heavy pots of soil while gardening. All of a sudden something just *snapped* and then I was on the floor. It took me 15 minutes to crawl from the hall floor to my bed. Nausea from the pain pretty much knocked me out until my DH got home from work, 5+ hours later. The pain went from above the left glute all the way down to my foot!

I'm pretty young, so I thought I could just get over it by myself with a little time... and after a month and a half of pain while walking, standing, sitting, and moving in general, I got professional help and went to a sports chiropractor. Went to 10 sessions of massage, ultrasound therapy, and spine realignment (basically they crack your back). What helped specifically:

*Specific stretches for the affected area- a lot of the stretching is on your back. I did a lot of stretching in 1&1/2 months!

*Alternating icing then heating of the area. I bought an ice pack that stays flexible while frozen, and used a electric heating pad for heat. 15 minutes warm the area, then 15 minutes cool the area, repeat a couple of times, ending with the ice pack.

*Chiropractor gave me a little pack that runs voltage into the area on the affected area, via 4 pads that stick to the skin, kind of like what some bodybuilders/athletes use to stimulate muscles for a workout. It gave a little continuous *buzz* to the area. Chiropractor said it helps to desensitize the area through overstimulation, and it was something I wore pretty much all day long for pain relief so I could go on with my day. It clipped to my pants like a small portable radio.

It made a 110% improvement, although it still took another month or so to feel a little bit normal. Thank heavens I didn't have to have surgery.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your recovery!

ed for spelling

 

[downstownlady]

I use to do yoga...but am very limited now...I will try this...it sounds familiar from physical therapy. Thank you, even though I didn't start this topic.

 

[CarolAnn]

In late May I was in the hospital with my mom and went to sit on a couch in the hall area while the got her back in bed. Set my crocheting bag on the floor and decided to put it on the seat next to me. I stood halfway to just scooch down a little ways, not noticing the half arm separating the seat and pointing my tailbone right at that arm slammed it down when I went to sit. Hurt so bad I wanted to scream, fall on the floor and curl into a tight ball and cry. BUT since I was on a cadiac post op floor I clutched my bag to my chest and willed myself not to do any of those things. Worst pain I have ever had, even more than when I slammed my foot into the side of the porch after surgery.

I went to my chirporactor several times, had massages and just really had to wait it out till the bruising went away. Chiropractor didn't think my tailbone was fractured. When that stopped hurting, after 2 months, I started having pain in my upper leg/hip/groin, then pain going down my leg as far as my ankle some days. Chiro finally said get to an orthopedic doc and find out what's putting pressure on these nerves to your leg before permanent damage is done and your leg begins to deteriorate. I got an appointment for the next week, what a blessing! He checked me out and said it's the lower back, not hip and had it x rayed and read it soon afterward. It showed a narrowing between my L 3-4 and he wanted an MRI. Next week I had the MRI which showed a bulging, but not herniated, disc. Recommended treatment was an epidural to help draw the fluid out of that disc and let it heal. I had the first shot yesterday and have been very easy on myself all of today. Will continue the same thru the weekend. I haven't had any pain today at all, except in the area of the shot when I sat in a hard plastic adirondak chair to read, as I do every night, while my chickens have their evening romp in the yard. I won't get the second shot unless I'm still having pain. I'm told they do them spaced at least 2 weeks apart. Today I feel pretty good, but once in a while I'd have a day when I didn't hurt. I pray this will do what I need it to and the disc will heal and restore the nerves to good health. I really feel this is an indirect result of slamming my tailbone so badly. I heard such a crunching/cracking sound when it happened. Thankfully nothing actually did crack, but the three weeks my mom was in the hospital an hour away had me in the car or hospital chairs all that time before I had a chance to have it checked out.

I'm awfully sorry for all you ladies suffering. I can't imagine having to live my life with the pain I've been having. I'm no spring chicken, I'm 58, but I consider myself way too young to be resigned to a life with pain like that. So very thankful my problem doesn't require surgery or puncturing my spine or disc. That scared me. The MRI I had wasn't anywhere near as bad as everyone said it was, but it was an open unit MRI and not too noisy even. I wish some or all of you could be helped in this way. I just don't/won't buy the nothing can be done just live with it story. So much is possible these days. My best to all of you!
Be Blessed, Carol

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Mine is from a car wreck injury when I was 19. So, I have been dealing with it for about 15 years. My hips/lower spine is twisted to the right and PT did nothing to correct it. I live with it mostly, but when the pain really hits, I take ibuprofen for it's anti inflammatory properties. It works better than anything else I have tried. Ice has never worked. Yoga helps sometimes. IcyHot helps when the ibuprofen doesn't completely "fix it." Mine is usually all the way down my leg as well when it does flare. Sometimes I can walk, sometimes not. I have been in the bed for a week with it before. Either mine has gotten slightly better over the years, or I have become REALLY good at mostly ignoring it, but I have a rather high pain tolerance. Last time mine flared was when I simply sneezed while filling the dogs water bowl

That time had me down for 10 days

 

[exoticduckluvr]

moist heat as hot as you can stand it and a tens unit on as strong as you can stand it. I wear it for 24 hrs sometime. the 15 minutes they tell you does do squat. It will numb you after a while. Deep hard sleep helps too. like 8 to 10 hrs uninterrupted. You will need to take something to achieve that. I take a 1 mg Xanax when I need a good sleep. I only sleep 2 to 4 hrs uninterrupted with the aid of muscle relaxers. I do take them everynight. Have they done MRI or Mylogram?? If negative get Dr to order Disk-O-Gram. That's what it took to find my problem. They kept telling me for 15 yrs nothing was wrong, that it was in my head because of repeated negative test results. Disk-O-Gram show disk gone and 2 damaged. I now have bone grafts, 2 rods, & 6 screws and never ending back pain. I only take a pain pill when it gets really unbearable which isn't to often since I no longer work and try to be careful. Don't let them send you to Pain Management. All they want to do is give you hard drugs to take everyday and make you into a addict. Made me mad. I thought I as going to try Acupuncture.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Where the pain is and where it radiates to, is an indication of where the bulging disk or arthritis (or both) is. Because with some individual differences, there are basic 'zones' that each nerve covers.

Nerves leave your spinal column and branch out into the body - if you have lower back arthritis or bulging disks, it is the nerves that go out into your legs that get compressed. It's that spot where the nerve leaves the spine, where a disk or arthritis can press on it.

In the lower back, nerves that go down the side of the leg or the back of the leg ('sciatica') can be compressed.

Many people are helped by physical therapy. This lessens muscle spasms and makes more room for things that are getting compressed. The more active you are, the more exercise and stretching you need. And to keep them working, you have to do them every day. EVERY DAY. Many people don't have the discipline at first, but quite a few people learn that stretching and exercises can even eliminate the need for medications or surgery.

Especially effective are stretches that stretch the back of the leg. Such as reaching the knee forward to the chest. And remember, there is a good way to stretch and a bad one. Very forceful stretching, or bouncing, does the exact opposite of what effective stretching does - that type of stuff actually tightens the muscles up, doesn't loosen them!!!!

There's a great softbound book called just 'STRETCHING' that has simple line drawings in it, and a selection of stretches for each type of activity you do.

It is really unbelievable to most people that exercises could do so much good, so they often don't stick with it.

In many cases, heat makes things swell up more, and compresses nerves more. People love to put on heat because it makes the muscles loosen up and feel so good, ,but it also can inflame tissues that are getting pressure on them.

Sometimes the trick is to apply heat briefly before you start to be active, to loosen up muscles, and then apply ice after activity, to lessen swelling. Sometimes a muscle relaxant can assist. Ask a doctor.

Another amazingly simple yet effective treatment is traction. This also loosens muscles and makes more room.

Another very, very effective approach is losing weight. Weight on the front of the body - belly, chest, can pull on the lower back. Another effective treatment is to adjust how one sits. Keeping the knees higher than the hips loosens muscles and stretches the lower back.

When nerves are compressed, many people's bodies are 'wired' so that, the way their nerves work, is if they have a little change in the bones and disks, their muscles react by clamping down hard, big time, and that muscle spasm can spread from one muscle to the other! Often it's the people whose back muscles are most shortened and tight, that have the most problem!!! Certain activities, the way one sits, drives a car, can tighten and shorten those muscles.

That muscle contraction is what produces most of the pain and really clamps down on the nerves!!!! It's the body's reaction for survival, 'splinting' an injured part, and some people's bodies do it more than others. It can then be shocking to see how much stretching and exercising will actually do to reduce or even stop pain.

Another real surprise is that resting 'until the pain goes away' isn't always the best solution. Finding a comfortable position and not moving is very, very tempting. And it's quite often the worst choice possible!!! Often getting moving, even if it requires muscle relaxants and pain meds, works out better in the long run!!! As quickly as one can get moving, stretching and working those muscles, that's often the better.
I am not one of the people who likes chiropractors. I think adjustments avoid the basic problem and keep the person dependent on paying the chiropractor. I also think adjustments can damage further some back problems. So can traction, so I think it's very, very important to have a very good quality xray or even MRI, to make darn sure you know exactly what is going on in that spine, before deciding on a treatment, or who's going to do it.

Disks and arthritis are nothing to fool with or treat casually. It's EXTREMELY important to get a very, very good picture of what's happening. It's exactly like equine lameness - the 'right treatment' depends completely on what's going on in that leg, NOT on what you see on the surface, as 'symptoms'.

So as you can see people are often not doing the best thing for their lower back pain. Almost always a person can make changes that will control that pain. The trick is actually to AVOID surgery. It isn't a 'solution' as much as a last ditch effort to relieve pain. If you want to stay active and manage pain, rather than ONLY manage pain, you do everything first, and you go into surgery 'fighting fit', stretched, active, in shape, weight down, and loose and supple. Think of surgery not as a 'miracle cure' but as a part of your attack on lower back pain...MAYBE.

If it gets to the point where surgery is needed - LET THE BUYER BEWARE!!!!! There are so many 'instant laser spine clinics' and these are not always a cost effective or even safe approach. Be very, very careful who you consider having cut on your back. A good surgeon can do amazing things for you and a hack can leave you in far worse shape.

Don't be fooled by terms such as 'minimally invasive' or 'microsurgery'. Very few surgeons really are doing the latest least invasive, micro methods. The trick with back surgery is to do as little as possible and as much as necessary, WHERE it is necessary. Older surgeries involved removing a lot of bone - the more these have been refined over the years the less they are removing!!! The best tested, most innovative surgeries involve doing not hardly anything! Just a little clean up around the nerve and very, very little tissue, especially bone, actually being disturbed or removed. Check out Pittsburgh Allegheny Regional for an example.

Some people DO need the surgery known as 'fusion'. It involves removing a disk that has really been destroyed and fusing the two bones on each side of where the disk was. Sometimes there is no other real solution. The disk is extremely bulging out and there is no less surgery that's going to work. Fusion has been refined and when it is needed, that's what is needed.

There are new amazing methods being developed, even, replacing disks with artificial steel or high density plastic 'appliances'. These are being done in Germany and some other countries, but most American doctors are still very leery. There are very few really good reviewed, juried studies on the results. Most smart surgeons like to wait until a lot of research has been done. The one unsolvable problem so far with artificial disks is, say someone got one, and then got in a car accident and injured their spine AGAIN. This isn't rare, and when it comes to that, the artificial disks are a flat out pie eyed mess to re-do ('revise').

Many of the 'instant' clinics, what they do is while they are in there, they inject cortisone into the nerves. A person feels great when they wake up, but in a couple months they are pretty much back where they were. Then they want another surgery. Which is the whole point.

The other thing to keep in mind is that your back, well, your body as a whole, is not a collection of points that cause specific symptoms. It's a system, that works all together. Fitness, activity, suppleness through stretching, lifting and moving and sitting correctly, and at times, yes, even surgery, are all a part of a healthy, reduced pain existence.

 

[FarmerJamie]

welsummerchicks,

You make a lot of valid points, and I want to second the comments about getting a quality medical professional involved, if you can. I was fortunate to be able to use the Cleveland Clinic after my regular health provider wanted to do something I wasn't comfortable with. A friend of mine had a eerily similar issue, went somewhere else, and is still suffering years later. If you can, GET SECOND OPINIONS. I realize in this current economy, not everyone has this choice. If you need surgery, try to find someplace you can trust, not somewhere convenient.

Simple stretching exercises I did during my pre-surgery days are something I try to continue even now. It just feels so much better.

Good luck with this stuff everyone.