Do you know what is the feeling of sciatic nerve pain? Did you ever feel an ache so strong that it was very difficult for you to stand up? Often people experience an unbearable pain just doing something very simple and they don’t know why. When this happens, the most probable diagnosis is that of “sciatica.”
How can you identify sciatica? Sciatica is a condition in which what’s called the “sciatic nerve” is affected by inflammation. This important nerve is positioned at the bottom end of the vertebral column and it goes down to the buttocks zone, and to various parts of the leg and foot.
Normally, the symptoms are only felt on one side of the body and they can vary from a burning sensation or tingling feeling to a strong pain that crosses the areas above mentioned. It is possible, in some cases, that the sciatic nerve pain is present on both legs.
This is what scares many patients because they don’t understand what’s happening. The sciatic nerve pain can be so strong that they are fearing even to become crippled.
In addition to the pain, which is sometimes very strong, a sciatica sufferer can experience muscular weakness, numbness, and difficulty in moving or controlling the legs. It is very important to exactly identify what are the symptoms, because the treatments for the sciatic nerve pain will vary according to the origin of the pain itself.
There are several different causes of sciatica ranging from arthritis to a slipped disc and from an abscess to a pinched nerve. Fortunately, almost always, sciatica is easy to cure.
The most common cure for sciatic nerve pain is to ease the pressure on the nerve root through surgery, drugs, or natural methods. If you want to avoid surgery there are many natural sciatic nerve pain cures. In alternative you can try a combination of natural and medical treatments that will often include physical workouts and stretching exercises.
In the case of an acute attack of sciatica it’s better to lay in bed for the first few days to avoid irritating the sciatic nerve by getting up and down repeatedly.
Warm baths are a pain killer for sciatica sufferers, at least momentarily. However it’s better to avoid them if the sciatic nerve pain is caused by inflammation, because the inflammation will be increased by a prolonged exposition to the heat – and the swelling will increase too.
A preferred therapy is the application of ice packs on the aching area for almost 20 minutes. This treatment can be repeated every 2 hours and it will be not so comfortable, but it will greatly reduce the swelling.
Another effective method to soothe the sciatic nerve pain, at least temporarily, is the use of mineral ice. On the contrary the use of some drugs, prescribed by some doctors, can be addictive and, in some cases, very dangerous. As you probably already know many medicines have unpleasant side effects on your body.
Finally there’s the massage therapy that can be very helpful to avoid surgery and to better align your vertebral column for longer time. At this stage light exercises will be very effective, and so will be stretching. The goal of this physical activity is to prevent your muscles from stiffening.
There are more alternative treatments that will be helpful to treat the sciatic nerve pain: actually there are a lot of techniques like acupuncture, biofeedback, acupressure, guided imagery, herbal therapies, homeopathy, etc.
And here we come to the last resort, the surgical method which consist in removing the part of the disc that’s causing the sciatic nerve pain. This is really an extreme solution to try only if the sciatica pain is too strong and nothing can relieve it.
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