Oh man I like to think I am tough but I am coming apart at the seams. I have some sort of pinched nerve in my back that I thought was getting better but woke me at 3:30am in stabbing pain. I am wide awake and experiencing pain going from arm/fingertip to down my back/butt/leg. This is bad, really bad.

I took a painkiller and last of my steroid course but it's still throbbing. Should I go back to the ortho and ask for an MRI? Plus I messed up my wrist with all the pumpkin peeling. Halp!
The severe sciatic nerve pain in this house gets both DH and me in tears when it suddenly flares up and attacks one of us. We tried lots of remedies, but the best (ond the ONLY) thing that works for us and takes the pain away for hours is a deep and vigorous vibrating massage with a heavy-duty vibrator/massager appliance. Doesn't matter if it's the kind that looks like a long thick wand with a broad mound on the business end at the front, or a small device that fits over your hand like barbers used to use to massage their fingers into a man's scalp and neck. As long as it gives a very vigorous stong vibration.
Apply it to the upper half of your butt cheek, midline center, right on the slight depression that you can find if you dig your fingers in looking for the sciatic nerve location.
You can move the massage in a small circle an inch or so around that spot, and keep coming back to the target spot. Don't be too gentle; move the wand, or your fingers, slowly and deliberately.
After just a minute or two of massaging there, stop, and you may find that the pain is COMPLETELY gone. Gone. It's like the nerve is now blocked from sending signals or something. It's just gone. It works for us every single time.
While your waiting for the massage, try this maneuver which opens up the space of the sciatic nerve pathway and thereby relieves some of the pressure that may be pinching the nerve.
It's kinda hard to describe; SO much easier if I could just show it to you. But I'll try.
Lie on your back. ( in bed is fine.).
Good leg: Bend the good leg so that foot is flat on the bed, the knee is bent completely. (So you've slid your foot up near your butt and your knee is pointing to the ceiling.)
Bad leg: Lift the bad leg, point the knee off to the outside, and rest the outside of your ankle on the good leg's thigh. ( Kinda like you're resting that bad leg's foot on the lap of the good leg.)
Here's the part that makes it feel good: bring the good leg as close as you can to your chest. Just lift it up off the bed, bringing the good thigh up towards your face. That thigh has the bad leg's ankle still resting on it. That will open the hip joint on the bad side. Hold the position for a minute or two; rest and repeat. Pain will be much relieved.
Added note: If you sit for hours at a time, keep a soft (SOFT !) pillow on the seat of your desk chair (and the seat of your car, etc.). Take the softest bed pillow from your bed and keep it on that chair that you're always on. Shake it out once a day to redistribute all the feathers or other stuffing. That will allow your butt to have a broad support base of cushioning. Also, if you keep your wallet in the back pocket of your pants, DON'T. That pocket's load can be a trigger right over the sciatic nerve. Ouch!
My DH writes at his desk for ten or twelve hours at a stretch. Keeps a soft bed pillow on his desk chair, on his chair at the kitchen table, and also has one for the driver's seat in his car. Believe it or not, we also keep a tote bag in the trunk of our car; we call it the restaurant tote. It has two soft cushions in it. We take it into every restaurant that we go to.
Hope you feel better soon.
-Carolyn