Sciatica

Symptoms

The Sciatic Nerve is a big nerve that is comprised of 5 smaller nerves, each that exit out of different levels at your spine. After they combine to pass through your buttocks, they split back off again to spread out to different areas of your legs all the way down to your toes. Any sort of irritant or pressure to any part of this nerve will cause pain and numbness and tingling down one or both of your legs. Learn what causes sciatica, and learn how to get rid of the symptoms quickly with exercise!

Treatment

To alleviate symptoms of sciatica you must find what is irritating and pinching the nerve, and take that pressure off.  It could be a disc of your spine pushing against the nerve, or the nerve could be getting compressed as it passes through some muscle along its path down to your toes.  One of the main culprits is the piriformis muscle inside your butt cheek, another common culprit is the quadratus lumborum along the side of your back that could be squeezing the bones of your spine together causing that disc to push out and pinch your nerve. Stretching those muscles, among others nearby, should give you some immediate relief.  To keep the issue from being chronic you’ll need some core stabilization exercises to go along with it.  Here’s a 2 minute video including my favorite stretch to help alleviate the symptoms of sciatica.

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Video Transcript: Sciatica
The Sciatic Nerve is a big nerve that is comprised of 5 smaller nerves, and each of those exit out of different levels of your spine. They combine to pass through your piriformis muscle in your butt, and they split back off again to spread out to different areas of your legs, all the way down to your toes. Any sort of irritant or pressure to any part of this nerve could cause pain, numbness, and tingling down one or both of your legs. The nerve could get pinched as it exits the spine by a disc or from swelling, or if the muscles of your lower back are tight or in spasm causing the bones to squeeze together too tightly. The nerve could get pinched by the piriformis muscle if it’s tight or in a spasm. or, a dysfunction at your sacral iliac joint could have very similar signs and symptoms of sciatica as well. My name is Josie, I’m a physical therapist, and I’ll do my best to break all of these difference down into detail in my full length PT sessions. Check out the information for the herniated disc, piriformis syndrome, and SI dysfunction too. The treatments and exercises are similar, but the small details and differences could make the difference for you to have a faster recovery and a more complete one. Today I’ll share with you my #1 pick for the most helpful exercise for sciatica recovery. It’s an exercise very creatively named – the single knee to chest exercise. And it looks like this.