The sciatic nerve is an important nerve in your body. It’s probably safe to say it’s probably the largest and most important nerve in your body. It is the sciatic nerve that helps our lower extremities to work and move freely. When we have some sort of injury in our back such as herniated disc or fractured pelvis, we get sciatica pain. Anyone that has ever suffered from sciatic pain knows that it can range from a dull ache to an extremely intense pain that keeps us almost bed-ridden. The actual sciatic pain comes from the sciatic nerve being irritated in some way.
Many times when people experience pain in their back or lower extremities, they don’t know it is sciatica pain they are experiencing. All they know is that the pain seems almost never-ending at times. When sciatica pain is present, it’s not necessarily going to be just in the lower back, even though that’s where the sciatic nerve starts in the body. Because the sciatic nerve and all its branches go from the lower back right down to the toes, the pain may be in any one of those areas or all of them. This is one reason why many people are unaware that they have sciatic pain. Often the doctor won’t even know you have sciatic pain with out taking tests such as X-rays, MRI scans or CT scans.
There are different treatments to help deal with sciatic pain from home remedies right to surgery. Because most people don’t want to have to endure surgery, home remedies and other forms of therapy are usually used for the treatment of sciatic pain.
In addition to the sciatic nerve being irritated or pressured, another reason for sciatic pain may be inflammation in this area of the body. Anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen or epidural steroid injections are helpful in reducing inflammation and therefore reducing sciatic pain.
Physical therapy and chiropractors are used more and more for medical conditions in the body and reducing sciatic pain is included in those conditions. At the onset of the sciatic pain, your doctor may recommend rest, but only for a day or two. After the first couple of days, exercise and therapy will benefit you more than rest, which can actually aggravate the sciatic nerve. Your therapist or chiropractor will have an entire group of exercises and stretches you can do with them and at home to help lessen the sciatic pain you are experiencing.
It has been said that not only does exercise and therapy help to lessen the sciatic pain, but will also lessen the chances of having recurring flare-ups of pain in the future.