How to treat Sciatica?

Sciatica or sciatic neuritis is a pain that is experienced along the sciatic nerve, which is longest nerve running from the lower part of the spinal cord to the feet. It not only refers to pain but also numbness, tingling, or weakness in the leg. It can be caused due to several minor reasons like bad posture, being overweight, or muscle strain. Proper treatment and care is needed to get relief from it. There are various ways to treat Sciatica: -

Exercise

One can get relief from pain by doing simple exercises for just few minutes every day. This helps in alleviating sciatica nerve pain. But these should be done after consulting doctor as it could turn out counterproductive.

Stretches

Appropriate sciatica stretches can serve as good treatment as it achieves the aim of stretching muscles. These stretches will help in decompression of nerves and easing of pain because it releases pressure that is created on sciatic nerves.

Physical Therapy

It can be basically divided into 2 categories, namely Active Sciatica Treatment and Passive Sciatica Treatment. Former one involves exercises and aerobics while later one involves various techniques like Deep Tissue Massage, Hot and Cold Therapies, TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) and Ultrasound. All these are used to reduce spasms, swelling, stiffness, muscle cramping and pain.

Surgery

Earlier there were no other options than going for traditional methods for treatment. They were effective but not in all cases. Some go for surgery for immediate relief and some choose it if they don’t find any relief within few weeks of exercise and other treatments. There are two major kinds of Sciatica surgery: – Lumbar Laminectomy, which is used to cure pain caused by spinal stenosis and Microdiscectomy, which is effecting in curing problem due to disc herniation. But it should be last option.

Some other alternatives like Epidural steroid injections are also available but are less common and less preferred. There has been lot of advancement in medical field and proper treatment is available for sciatica. One should never ignore severe back pain as it could be sciatica. So always remember, prevention is always better than cure.