Category: Sciaticia

In the United States alone, a huge eighty percent of the population suffers from back pain at some point of theirs lives. It may manifest itself in different forms. It may come up as lower back pain, neck pain, or sciatica for some people. Back pain may last for a short while or it may persist for a longer time depending on different people. Back pain may range from a mild, persistent pain to an unbearable back ache than worsens with the slightest of movements. Back pain, also called dorsalgia by people in the medical profession, may originate from the muscles, nerves, bones, joints or other structures in the spine.

A recent study shows that there has been a steady rise in back pain consultation over the past ten years. The same study also reported a higher percentage of male patients seeking medical consult for back pain than women, and this percentage increases to seventy percent by age sixty. Surveys show that around forty percent of the population experience back pain which lasts for more than a day in the past year. Its persistence increases as we age: one out of three men and one out of four women aged sixty-five and above have been reported to suffer back pain for the whole year as compared to one out of twelve men and women between the ages of twenty-five and fortyfour.

Fortunately, a variety of treatment are available to alleviate the pain caused by lumbago. Choosing the most fitting treatment will be determined by the patient’s physician or therapist as the results may vary for every person. Below is a list of different treatment used for different levels of back pain.

* Heat therapy is used to alleviate back pain caused by back muscle spasms.
* Medications, be it over the counter or prescription, such as muscle relaxants, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and paracetamol have been proven effective in providing back pain relief.
* Exercise while being supervised by a licensed physical therapist, may prove beneficial for short-term and chronic back pain. This includes stretching and strengthening muscles surrounding the spine.
* Massage therapy performed by a licensed therapist may also help.
* Acupuncture is an alternative treatment being used to give back pain relief.
* Back manipulation therapies like chiropracty may help lessen back pain as well.
* Surgery is most appropriate for worst cases like: lumbar disc herniation or degenerative disc disease; spinal stenosis from lumbar disc herniation; scoliosis; and compression fracture.

There have been instances where the cause of the back pain is non-physical. These factors include: on-the-job stress, repressed anger, anxiety, or depression. For these causes, treating the psychological cause or resolving existing issues may help get rid of the dorsalgia. Engaging in stress relieving activities may also help provide back pain relief.

For most people, postural factors have been the reported root cause of their dorsalgia. This may be due to improper lifting technique, poor posture, or poor support from sleeping mattresses or office chairs. Most sufferers experience a great of comfort from having such ergonomic or postural factors corrected.

Our backs support our entire body. It helps us stand tall, sit straight, and walk upright without any problem. So it is just fitting that we give it the care it is due. Preventing dorsalgia is easier than treating it. So as early as now, relieve yourself of unnecessary stress, engage in an adequate amount of physical activity, maintain proper posture, and you’re on your way to a healthy, pain-free back.

Sciaticia SOS -how to get rid of the pain in 7 days

If you’ve ever been diagnosed with sciatica, you know how essential it is to be able to relieve sciatic nerve pain when it flares up. For some sufferers, this is the worst pain they’ve felt in their lives and it requires immediate medical attention. For others, it’s time to try some home remedies.

Note that nothing said here is intended to replace medical advice. If you’re suffering from any sort of pain, let alone that from your sciatic nerve, talk to a medical professional about your treatment options. They will be able to give you the best help, and will diagnose any more serious underlying condition.

Medical Remedies for Sciatica

Depending on the cause of your sciatica, your doctor may want to try one of several different remedies. The first is to put you on an anti-inflammatory medication. These will reduce any swelling in your spine that may be contributing to or causing the pain you’re experiencing.

If the anti-inflammatory medication does not work to relieve sciatic nerve pain, most doctors will try injected anti-inflammatory medication next. This is usually in the form of a corticosteroid that is put directly into the tissue that’s putting pressure on your sciatic nerve. It should reduce swelling and therefore reduce your pain.

More intense medical interventions for sciatica include an epidural injection, similar to what many pregnant women receive while giving birth. A final option would be surgery, in which a doctor would physically move or remove anything putting pressure on the sciatic nerve.

Home Remedies for Sciatica

If your sciatica is not bad enough for your doctor to intervene in one of the above ways or if you’re trying to keep your pain under control, there are ways to relieve sciatic nerve pain that you can do in the comfort of your own home. These are simple and straightforward things that, over time, should help your discomfort.

When your pain first strikes, try applying alternating heat and cold to the affected area. Use an ice pack for 15-20 minutes, then apply a heating pad. Do this for a couple of hours and see if it makes a difference. Make sure that neither the ice nor the heat are too intense, because you can damage more tissue than you help.

While a day or two of bedrest may be necessary to relieve sciatic nerve pain, it will not do much to help the overall situation if you stay in bed for days on end. Thus, you should be sure to get up and move around, even if it is painful. This will help your spinal tissue stretch and relax, which should relieve some of your pain.

Exercise is a great way to give yourself long-term relief from sciatica pain. While you won’t want to do anything too intense, your doctor, chiropractor, or physical therapist can help you find exercises that keep your back loose and, therefore, your pain away.

Becoming Pain Free

While it may seem like a far-off dream when you’re in the middle of an attack, it is possible to use a combination of medical and home treatments to relieve sciatic nerve pain. Follow your doctor’s advice carefully. Add in some of the home treatments mentioned here, and you should find your pain dissipating.

Have you ever experienced such excruciating pain that standing up becomes a great difficulty? Sometimes, sitting down makes the pain even worse. A lot of people may be doing something so simple and yet a certain body movement would cause them unbearable pain. You may be experiencing sciatica.

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica, or sciatic nerve pain, is a condition in which the sciatic nerves in the body become inflamed. Sciatic nerves are found beginning at the lower spine and continue down the buttocks area, back of the legs, and into the feet. Symptoms of sciatica is characterized by a light tingling feeling or burning sensation to a full blown shooting pain that travels from the lower back, buttocks area, back of legs, and/or feet. More often than not, sciatic nerve pain affects only one side, although it could also be possible to run down both legs.

Sciatica could be a frightening experience especially if you do not realize what is happening. One may begin to feel like he/she will become crippled. However, most of the time sciatica can be treated effectively.

Causes of Sciatica
Sciatica may occur when the nerve in the lower spine become pinched, or if there is a slipped disk. Arthritis or a sprained ligament will narrow the passageways of the nerves which may cause the nerve endings to become tender and inflamed. Other causes of sciatica include an abscess, growth, or blood clot. But these can be rare.

Treatment of Sciatica

Since sciatic nerve pain is caused by a combined pressure and inflammation on the nerve root, treatment is generally focused on relieving both of these factors through non-surgical treatments and/or surgical methods.

Non-surgical sciatic nerve pain treatment may include one or a combination of medical treatments and alternative (non-medical) treatments. Most of the time, it includes some form of exercise and stretching.

If you are experiencing sciatica, it is advised to stay off your feet for the first few days. One of the things you must avoid is to get up and down repeatedly as this will only cause the nerve to become more irritated. Though some quarters pose question on the benefits of bed rest, still it is advisable at least for the first few days.

It may feel soothing to soak in warm baths to ease the pain. However, do not use heating pads while the nerve is inflamed. Prolonged heat will draw the inflammation in and will keep the swelling high. Rather, most healthcare professionals would advise the application of ice packs directly on the lower back area for 20 minutes at a time, every couple of hours. This may feel a little uncomfortable, but the cold packs will greatly help in reducing the swelling. Using mineral ice is also a good alternative in soothing the pain and offers a temporary sciatic relief.

Though some doctors may prescribe muscle relaxants for temporary relief of pain, caution is advised as to the side effects of these types of prescription drugs. Some medications can be addictive, or may give a false sense of feeling better.

Massage therapy is considered to be a highly effective non-surgical treatment as it can keep your spine in better alignment for longer periods of time. As soon as your back begins to heal, your doctor may give you stretching and low impact exercises so that your muscles won’t stiffen too much. Be sure to engage in exercise only when your doctors approve it.

Alternative treatments that you might find available and helpful are accupressure, accupuncture, herbal therapies, homeopathy, biofeedback, and guided imagery to name just a few.

Surgical methods to remove the portion of the disc that is irritating the nerve root are micro discectomy or lumbar laminectomy, and discectomy. Surgery helps relieve both the pressure and the inflammation especially if the sciatic nerve pain is severe and has not been relieved through medical treatments.

Have you ever felt a chronic, burning pain that spreads from your lower hip running down to your foot? Is it just as painful sitting down or standing up? You might be suffering from sciatica.

Sciatica, as the name implies, affects the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the single longest nerve in the body. It originates from the lower lumber region of your spine, through the pelvis, through the hind portion of your leg down to your foot. It is mainly responsible for distributing blood to the back of our lower extremities.

The most common causes of sciatica are: a herniated disc, lumbar spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, trauma, piriformis syndrome, and spinal tumors. When one suffers from a herniated disc, there is an inflammation or bulging of the spinal disc causing it to protrude out of the annulus. The annulus is the space between the spine where the spinal discs are located. Disc herniation could exert pressure on the nearby nerve root causing a direct compression on sensitive nerve tissues such as the sciatic nerve.

Lumbar spinal stenosis is almost the same as disc herniation in the sense that spinal nerves are pinched. In this case, though, the spinal canal shrinks, squeezing and applying too much pressure on the spinal nerve inside. The spinal nerve branches out of the spinal canal to the entire body through openings called as neural foramina.

Once these passages are congested or narrowed, it causes nerve compression. If the blockage happens on these passageways, they’re considered foraminal stenosis. If it occurs on the opening where the sciatic nerve passes, it may cause sciatica.

Another cause can be spondylolisthesis, or more commonly known as slipped discs. It may also cause sciatica when a vertebral disc moves out of place and applies direct pressure to the spinal nerve adjacent to it, usually occuring on the lumbar or the lower portion of the spine. Blunt force trauma to the lower back region may cause severe damage to the spine and may cause sciatica as well. Accidents or external forces that may cause bone fractures like vehicular accidents, horse riding accidents, sports injuries may all lead to sciatica as bone fragments may occasionally be the cause of the nerve compression. The piriformis syndrome occurs when the piriformis muscle spasms and compresses the sciatic nerve. In this case, the sciatic nerve running beneath the piriformis muscle may sometimes get irritated by movement of the said muscle.

Lastly, spinal tumors are anomalous growths on the spine that can either be benign or malignant. Rare as sciatica cases being caused by spinal tumors may be, once a tumor develops in the lumbar region, it may cause nerve compression that may trigger sciatica.

There are a lot of treatments recommended for sciatica, some non-invasive and some involving surgery. In cases of bone fragments, spinal tumor, and severe cases of slipped or herniated disc causing the sciatica, of course surgery would be required as treatment. But for some minor instances, chiropractic treatment and acupuncture is enough to relieve the pain. Chiropractic therapy may range from ice/cold therapy, ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), to spine adjustment or manipulation. These entail for the lumber area to be exposed to cold or heat to reduce inflammation and muscle spasms.

Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine that originated from China. Fine needles are inserted into your skin in strategic points in the body to release negative energy and restore health and well-being, and treat pain and illnesses. It has been proven effective by medical practitioners. It is highly recommended as a treatment for generic lumbar pain, even for mild sciatica, as it supposedly releases tension from the spastic muscles and relieves the pressure from the compressed nerve.

So if you have been experiencing sharp, burning pain on your lower extremities, it is best that you consult a medical practitioner at once. You might be experiencing sciatica. But like they say, prevention is better than cure. Let’s not abuse our bodies.

Sciatica is not a specific disease, instead it is a condition characteristic of several different diseases.

Simply put, it is a mild to intense pain in the left or right leg. Sciatica is caused by a compression of one or more of the five sets of nerve roots in the lower back.

These compressions are typically caused by a disc rupture or bone spur in the lumbar spine. It causes pain, numbness, tingling, and weakness in the arms or legs.

This is referred to as radiculopathy. If the nerve root causing the problem is in the neck it is called cervical radiculopathy. Sciatica is called a lumbar radiculopathy since it occurs in the lower back.

There are six typical causes of Sciatica.

Spondylolisthesis

Spondylolisthesis is usually found at birth, early childhood or acquired from physical trauma such as weightlifting. It is a disorder that most often affects the lumbar spine. Spondylolisthesis is characterized by one vertebra slipping forward over an adjacent vertebra. Often sciatic leg pain is caused when a nerve root compresses due to the vertebra being displaced and slipping.

Piriformis Syndrome

Due to the lack of MRI or x-ray findings, it may be difficult to diagnose and treat piriformis syndrome. The piriformis muscle connects to the thighbone, assists in hip rotation and is located in the lower part of the spine. When muscle spasms develop in the piriformis muscle thereby compressing the sciatic nerve, Piriformis syndrome develops. The sciatic nerve runs beneath the piriformis muscle. Piriformis syndrome is named for the piriformis muscle and the pain caused when the muscle irritates the sciatic nerve.

Lumbar Bulging or Herniated Disc

When the nucleus breaks through the annulus a herniated disc occurs. It is called a ‘non-contained’ disc disorder. A bulging disc is also known as a contained disc disorder. This means the nucleus pulposus (gel-like center) remains ‘contained’ within the annulus fibrosus (tire-like outer wall) of the disc. Because a herniated disc is a ‘non-contained’ disc disorder, the consequences of a herniated disc are worse. Whether a disc or herniates or bulges, disc material can press against an adjacent nerve root and compress delicate nerve tissue and cause sciatica.

Irritation and nerve compression cause pain and inflammation often leading to extremity tingling, muscle weakness and numbness. The disc material itself also contains an acidic, chemical irritant (hyaluronic acid) that causes nerve inflammation. The herniated nucleus causes direct compression of the nerve root against the interior of the bony spinal canal.

Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

The condition of spinal stenosis results in the spinal canal narrowing. The narrowing causes pressure on the spinal cord and spinal nerves. Common in patients over the age of 50 and with causes that are not clear, spinal stenosis has two different types frequently described.

A common complaint of spinal stenosis patients is leg pain which gets worse with walking. Another complaint is back pain. Sitting and bending can sometimes alleviate these pains.

There is one type of spinal stenosis that exists where individuals are born with a narrow spinal canal. In people that have this condition even minor structural changes to the spine can cause severe spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis related to age is the more commonly acquired form. This form of the stenosis condition may cause various spinal components to sag or bulge from arthritis. Discs, joints, and ligaments can be affected.

These changes, which occur with age, can have the effect of narrowing the spinal canal and thus trigger spinal stenosis pain.

Spinal Tumors

Spinal tumors can be benign or malignant, but are fairly rare. They cause sciatica due to pressure on the disc.

Trauma

Another cause of sciatica is trauma caused by accidents. The impact may injure nerves or cause fragments of bone to compress the nerves (lumbar or sacral spinal nerve roots)

If you think you may be suffering from sciatica, be sure and contact your physician to get a proper diagnosis!

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