Is leg pain stopping you from being comfortable? Enjoying your free time? Or concentrating at work?

There’s one thing I see regularly in the clinic - Sciatica.

But if you’ve been to see me about this type of pain, you might know what I’m about to say - I don’t like the term sciatica.

Sciatica happens when the sciatic nerve (which runs down the back of the leg) is irritated. It can cause pain down the back of the leg anywhere from the hip to the foot. It can also come with areas of pins & needles, numbness or difficulty using certain muscles. 

Sometimes sciatica can come with back pain, but many times not. 

It might give you trouble sitting, or reaching to your feet, or standing for any length of time. How about bending to lift up a child, or getting in and out of the car? Even sleeping comfortably can be challenging. The pain can be exhausting, frustrating and generally wearing.

But here’s why I don’t like the term ‘Sciatica’ - it’s not helpful. It doesn’t actually tell us WHY it’s irritated. Just that it is.

There are many ways to irritate a sciatic nerve:

• It could be unhappy due to a disc or joint in the spine. 

• The muscles it runs next to could be too tight, giving it too many signals. 

• Or those tight muscles could be stopping it from sliding and moving like it should. 

• The signals could also come from the other end - like if you’ve ever had an ankle sprain or foot injury.

Regardless of the cause, there’s one thing I recommend doing first to help settle things down... 

Breathe:

• Try taking a breath in, then sighing all the way out. 

• See if you can slow down the breath as it comes back in.

• Try to make that in breath as slow as possible through your nose.

• Then aim for even slower - so slow you can’t even hear the air passing your nose. 

• See if you can sigh outwards even further. Then slow the in breath again.

• Try that a few times and notice how your back can relax.

• How does that feel?

But it’s important to find out why a sciatic nerve is unhappy. This is the key to getting rid of the pain and being confident that it’s not coming back.

Get in touch if this sounds familiar. The sooner it’s figured out, the sooner you can get back on track.