What Actually Works for Sciatica Pain Relief (And What Doesn’t)
Sciatica is one of those conditions that dominates your life. One day everything is fine and the next you wake up with a burning pain that radiates from your lower back all the way down your leg making it difficult to do anything. Is it any wonder it’s one of the most common conditions people seek medical care for? Unfortunately, despite the many suggestions for remedies to relieve sciatica pain, most are either ineffective or only provide at best a temporary solution.
To understand what really helps with sciatica pain relief we need to look past the remedies that only temporarily address the symptoms and get to the remedies that provide relief because they address the actual problem.
Remedies That Help
The remedies that actually work to relieve sciatica pain don’t just block symptoms. They relieve what is putting pressure on the nerve, so it has a chance to heal. Some remedies do this better than others.
Chiropractors are one of the best treatment options for sciatica patients. Most conditions that cause sciatica result from some kind of mechanical issue in the spine that leads to nerve compression. Misaligned vertebrae or protruding disc material in the spinal canal can lead to sciatica pain. Sciatica chiropractors perform targeted spinal manipulation techniques to relieve the compression. A chiropractor for sciatica uses targeted techniques to restore proper spinal alignment and create space for the nerve, which often provides relief faster than waiting for the problem to resolve on its own.
Physical therapy is another treatment option that has been shown to be effective in treating sciatica patients. A quality physical therapist will not only treat you but provide you with exercises to strengthen supportive muscles around your spine and improve flexibility in areas that might be causing compression to the nerve. The key here is quality – basic stretching routines don’t cut it. They need to be tailored to the situation.
Anti-inflammatories don’t block pain but help reduce swelling that might be aggravating the sciatic nerve. It might not be a remedy that helps you much on its own, but it helps ease the symptoms while other treatment options take care of what is causing those symptoms.
Remedies That Don’t Help
Ice and heat are commonly suggested by various “soothing” sources as remedies for sciatica pain. While ice and heat is not going to harm you, they are not particularly effective remedies outside of providing temporary comfort. Ice might help with early swelling and heat might feel good by relaxing tight muscles around the painful area, but neither are going to do anything for the actual issue that is causing irritation to your sciatic nerve.
Bed rest has been suggested for sciatica patients in the past, but physicians have moved away from that suggestion in recent years. While some amount of resting is common when people first start to feel the effects of sciatica, longer periods of being confined to bed can cause more harm than good. The muscles that support your spinal column still need to be active and bed rest can prevent this.
Stretching gets a mixed review as a remedy for sciatica pain relief. Stretching feels good for some people but makes things feel worse for others. Consider that stretching an irritated sciatic nerve could lead to inflammation and increase the pain sensation. Many generic stretches for sciatica that are suggested online are basic stretches (such as hamstring stretches or piriformis stretches) but if you are just beginning to experience pain this may not be appropriate and might make things worse.
How Some Common Remedies Miss the Mark
Foam rolling has become a very trendy remedy to try for all sorts of complaints. People also quickly turn to foam rolling for remedying their sciatica pain as well. The problem with foam rolling, however, is that it works on muscles and fascial tissues, but it won’t do anything to help a compressed sciatic nerve caused by a disc issue or a bone issue in the low back or spine area. Rolling over your glute or hamstring muscles might feel good but it’s not going to fix you if your sciatic nerve is compressed by something going on in your spine.
Over-the-counter topical creams and patches fall into a similar category as foam rolling treatments. Many of them create a perceived response on the skin (cooling or heating effect) that distracts from other sensations, but they usually don’t reach the appropriate areas to do anything about a compressed sciatic nerve.
Inversion tables are another surprisingly popular treatment that sciatica patients who have tried everything else turn to. Even though they’ve become less common in recent years there are still people who swear by them for back pain. The results for inversion tables when it comes to sciatica pain relief, however, vary widely. The decompression they provide while hanging upside down can feel good and help some people a little bit, but it decompresses your entire spine and not just specific areas of need. For some people it can offer slight benefit, while others feel it makes no difference at all or even makes their condition worse.
What Really Helps Over Time
The treatments that actually improve your situation have one thing in common: they attempt to treat what’s wrong rather than simply masking symptoms. Treatment options that relieve pressure on the nerve, strengthen supportive structures around the spine, and reduce swelling closer to the source of pain all address what is causing your symptoms.
Most people with sciatica do not require surgical intervention despite how debilitating it can feel when you are attempting to get through your daily tasks. Conservative treatments can assist the majority of those who suffer with this condition. Recovery times differ from person to person depending on the severity of their situation and how long they waited to seek out treatment. What does not help (and potentially hurts) recovery times is bouncing from trendy remedy to trendy remedy versus utilizing the legitimate treatments that have been shown to work overtime.