ADVICE NEEDED! Anybody suffer from sciatica?

[nonseq]

Stretching every day or yoga every day will help. Or at least since I started doing a yoga-based stretching routine, I don't have problems with sciatica anymore.

 

[drdoolittle]

My sciatica came about several years ago when I was getting 2 pygmy goats ready for the county fair. I had to spend 3 days either laying flat in bed, or sitting straight up on a hard-backed chair. I couldn't even bend over while in the chair to pick something up without excuriating pain. But after those 3 days, the pain was bearable enough to be able to get the goats to the fair and stay there overnight with my son who was showing them. I haven't had too much trouble from it, but every once in awhile, it flares back up----------usually due to me doing something stupid like trying to move a huge sectional by myself, or putting too much dirty bedding in the wheelbarrow at once and trying to move it! I also have 2 discs in my lower back that are degenerating, which doesn't help. I'm sure my job as a school-bus driver has something to due with that. I completely sympathize with what you are going through.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Farmer Jamie is so right. A surgeon will say surgery, a physical therapist will say physical therapy, the insurance company will say live with it!

You have to learn about anatomy and make your own decision. If I heard the same thing over and over, and I was going an entirely different route, I would wonder more about mine than the other opinions!

We all have biases ourselves, and we have to recognize just as health care providers have their biases, we do too.

I've seen every kind of bias, from 'I won't have surgery' (limping around in agony for years and getting addicted to pain killers, depressed, angry, bitter, losing jobs) to 'surgery is the miracle answer!' (hasn't stuck with physical therapy, won't lose weight, won't change posture habits...etc).

As for fear of surgery due to the fear of complications or foul ups, one very arrogant and opinionated prtho-neuro spine surgeon told me, things don't go wrong for no reason. Either the patient is just a bad risk (many health problems, years of no care), or the surgeon screwed up (picked the wrong surgery, was sloppy, etc). There are good surgeons and bad ones, go to a good one, there will be fewer problems. Once I had emergency surgery, the nurse came in after, lifted up the dressing, and said, 'Oh, did Dr. Smith do you? What a good pair of hands!' She could tell from just looking at the incision. It does make a difference. Remember the old saying, 'what do you call the guy who finished at the bottom of his class in med school?' 'Doctor!'

We may soon be coming to a day when older folks aren't told, 'why you're just getting old! Live with it!' They will have a very quick microsurgery, maybe not even be put under, and immediately feel better. A geriatrics specialist told me she felt much of the confusion, senility etc of elderly was due to circulatory problems, not diseases like alzheimers. That arteriosclerosis and even arthritis in the spine can prevent blood from circulating and nerves working properly to the brain, and that constant pain can make people function very badly mentally. WOW, I will be interested to see how that unfolds over the next few years. I have a feeling that will turn out to, not be all, but be a big factor.

 

[herefordlovinglady]

I bent over to pick up a towel, and bam it hit me. suffered for several months, was on so much pain meds could barley function. finally doctor sent me to mayo clinic in jacksonville, fl. was in surgery within the week (ruptured disc), in the hospital for 2 days, back to work within 2 weeks, have been pain free ever since.

all this because i dropped a kitchen towel on the floor -- ugh.

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
I've had hubby doing that since I had my dd! It does wonders but it comes right back when he stopped massaging that area in the butt part....

I've tried that stretching exercise about the foot turn inward, oooooooo! JetBlack, you MIGHT be on to something here! How come it was never given in PT? I wanted to give the extra ump LOL! It is my right scaitic nerve from lower back to point (middle of buttock) and down to leg. It did stop the tingling for a bit. If it can relieve the pain for a bit, I'm game for it! If it hurts again, I can do it wherever I am at, standing in a line or fixing supper in my kitchen.

Try it, ladies, and see if it give you a bit of a reprive.

I am wondering if the pain started with the epidural? I know it started with me when I was trying to push my DD out but her head sat on something in my hip, shoot painful electric shocks from my back to my leg......darn it was PAINFUL! So the nurses cranked up the epidural as high it would go and it would not stop the pain. Then doc came in, inspect the position of my baby, uh oh, she is not coming down like she should be...her head was lock in the nest of my pubic bone, offset, instead of going into the birth canal....had to go for the emergency C section. After that, I had nothing but problems after problems since then, infection, masitis, a week's stay at the hospital all within the month after I had my daughter. For two years, bouncing from doctor to doctor to find out the problem, all they could do for me is PT and grin and bear it. I do not WANT surgery....my mother went thru it and it did help her for the time being but her arthritis, it came back.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I don't think epidural or say, picking up a towel is actually what really causes that. The disks have to already be in bad shape.

I think really it is the extra strain of carrying and birthing, and then also some people just have very narrow spaces in there, a little bit of swelling or irritation and there is no where for it to go.

Last year a doc told me our disks start deteriorating when we are in our teens and twenties! I couldn't believe it, but he said that's how it is.

I read more than one study that suggested that some people's disks deteriorate very fast. One study found that people who had a high amount of natural cancer fighters in their bodies, the cancer fighting factors actually make the disks age faster. One of these days we might even take a daily protectant for disks that will keep them nourished and healthy,, leaving our natural cancer fighting factors to do their thing. You might read claims that some food supplements do this now, I don't think so.

 

[gritsar]

I have nerve damage at L5, the sciatic nerve, from two things called symptomatic intraverterbral hemangiomas. I don't have any advice to give, I just live with mine. Surgery for the hemangiomas is out of the question. Our doctor is closing his practice the 1st of October to take a position at the hospital. I'm hoping our new doctor will have some fresh ideas.
Just wanted to offer a

 

[CarolAnn]

Second day after my epidural in lumbar/lower spine area and I'm starting to ache just a little in the area I had the injection. I've done my chicken chores and watered garden and flower beds and feeling pretty good. In the after care instructions I brought home after the procedure it suggests I take glucosomine and chondroiton , over the counter supplements. I get that for my husband to take for the aching he's always had in his legs. It's good stuff and has worked well for us both over the years. I haven't been taking it but will get some this weekend and start.

To stick a smile in this rather dreary subject, I'll also be buying some golf balls today. I'll put in a couple of my nest boxes to replace the off white wooden egg I keep going out and forgetting I was the one to put in the nest. My heart leaps every time I see it, just before I hear "duh, you put that there!!" Yah, golf balls would be better.......uh huh.

 

[oldchickenlady]

I highly recommend getting to a good chiropractor! I loooove mine! I know many people don't believe in them, but mine has made a huge difference in my life. Pain is not my friend! I have arthritis in my neck and upper back and he really helps that when I get out of alignment. Ask around in your area and see who you can find. Hope you can get some relief!

 

[EweSheep]

Can not use chiro, Medicare does not cover them.

It is either pain meds. surgery or PT.

They said that chiro care is not medically necessary. And chiros are not MD doctors to provide medical care.

To me, I used to be a claims payer and denied every CHIRO claims there is because it is NOT medically necessary unless you have been in an car accident, no pain meds helping and in short of surgery, it would be covered 50%. Too many people go to Chiros for maintaince which we would deny every one of them. Not ALL chiros are quacks but some do get away with it by thinking you need more so I can get more money for my services even you might think you dont really need it.

Accupuncture is another one that we claims payers would deny. They do not cover unorthodox treatments or something Oriental treatments or any unproven, un-FDA approved treatments and meds, sorry, we dont cover them as well.

Now I know the real need for chiros and I do not see any harm in seeing one if you are hurting and someone who is very specialized in back or lumbar problems just as good as the ortho surgeons WITHOUT the surgery.