Sciatica Pain Relief

If you experience shooting pains from your lower back all the way down through your leg, you may be suffering from sciatica. For sciatica pain relief, you may not need to go to a doctor and can try some at-home remedies first. Either way, your body is telling you to slow down!

Sciatic nerve/

The sciatic nerve is a very large nerve that extends from the lower back down through to your legs. Because it is a very large nerve, it can cause a lot of pain if it is inflamed. If this nerve is irritated in any way, maybe from an injury or even stress, it can really become debilitating. Unfortunately, the sciatic nerve becoming irritated is very common.

My story

A few years ago, I started to wake up with pain in my lower back and buttocks and stiffness in my hips. It started one day where I had some stiffness when I woke up and it was hard for me to turn over in bed. Over the next several days, it became increasingly harder to turn over at night and get out of bed. It was the strangest thing that I couldn’t swing my legs to get out of bed. It was very painful. After a few days of feeling pain and stiffness, I woke up on about day 6 with so much pain and I literally could not get out of bed. It took me nearly half an hour to do it.

I was in my 30’s at the time and thought I could power through anything. Rather than take some time to slow down and help make things better, I just kept going at the same pace I normally did. On that day when I couldn’t get out of bed, I went to work. Bad idea. We had a medical facility on premises so I went to see the nurse. Automatically, she told me she thought it was my sciatic nerve. I heard the term sciatica before, but I really didn’t know much about it. She went through the list of symptoms and strangely, my symptoms were similar but not quite exact. When I explained to her that my symptoms were a little different, she re-evaluated and said it might be my SI joint. I call it my butt joint. She felt that I should see either a doctor or even a chiropractor.

SI joint – what?

I had never gone to a chiropractor before and was a little scared to do so. But, I felt that if I went to a doctor, they were just going to give me pain medication, which I didn’t want. So, to the chiropractor I went. He suspected it was the SI joint and did some treatments on me – trying to pull out the joint. After the first treatment, I barely felt relief – but there was some. I went for a few more treatments and he was able to pull out the joint to relieve the pain. So, I was glad that I went to see him because no medication was involved.

Why am I telling you this?

Why am I telling you this story when I didn’t have sciatica? Well, several reasons:

Medical professionals are quick to assume sciatica (in fairness, it is common)
Even if you do have sciatica, there’s some things you should be doing to keep yourself healthy.
My Mom recently did have sciatica and there are things you should do to stay healthy, but we often don’t realize what we are doing to ourselves. That is, until we have pain.

It’s time to start taking care of yourself if you want sciatica pain relief or even SI joint pain relief. We need to slow down. I know life is busy, I know life is overwhelming. I’m not blind to that but I did learn that not slowing down was causing this. I don’t want this to happen to you.

Causes of sciatica

There can be many reasons for sciatica nerve problems and one of them is inflammation of the nerve. The nerve can be pinched, causing pain. The reasons for this? Well, let’s see:

Do you stand for long periods of time or do you sit at a desk? Either way, both can cause you a problem if you’re not taking breaks and stretching.
Did you have an injury? Obviously, an injury could cause a pinched nerve.
Do you have any other underlying health condition?
Stress
Burning the candle at both ends

I learned

Here’s what I learned though…I was doing too much, I was stressed, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. Whether I had sciatica or an SI joint problem, I wasn’t taking care of myself. Does any of this sound familiar? When we overdo it, our bodies start to break down. We’re young and we think we are invisible. If you are generally healthy, you don’t realize you can get sick until you are sick.

Luckily, the chiropractor I went to didn’t try to sell me a bunch of visits or products. He suggested stress relief and stretching, which I have done regularly since this happened to me. Occasionally, I have made my own pain reliever using a carrier oil and some ginger and peppermint oil. I haven’t had to go to the chiropractor (or doctor) for this issue since then.

We need to slow down. I had a hound dog a long time ago and when I took him for walks, he would literally stop to smell the flowers. This is what we need to do. If you know anything about hound dogs, they rarely stop but, he taught me to stop and enjoy the little things in life. If you want sciatica pain relief, this is what we need to do before it becomes a problem. Listen to your body before it becomes a problem.