Sciatica

Sciatica is briefly the pain in the lower part of the body caused by the irritation or compression of the sciatic nerves on either side of the body. There are five spinal nerve roots in our body, each connected to a sciatic nerve, and the irritation of any one of these nerves can cause sciatica symptoms. Pain caused by sciatic nerves is generally felt in the lower back, hips and legs.

One important misconception that should be cleared about sciatica is that sciatica is the name of a disease. In reality, sciatica is the combination of the factors that irritate the nerves and cause the pain, rather than a stand-alone diagnosis. This is an important point, because how a sciatica case will be treated will depend on the underlying cause.

The sciatic nerve starts from the lumbar spinal cord and extends through the buttocks towards the legs. Hence, the pain felt by sciatica patients is also called sciatic nerve pain. In addition to pain, sciatica symptoms also include a burning sensation, numbness and a tingling sensation on the lower back, the buttocks and the legs. In severe sciatica cases, disability can also become an outcome as severe sciatica can make walking virtually impossible. In most cases, patients report aggravated symptoms after walking and bending, and a certain level of pain relief after resting. However, these reports are not yet backed up by any clinical study findings.

Sciatica: Causes

Sciatica can be developed with the compression of a series of nerves in our body, namely the lumbar nerves, sacral nerves and the sciatic nerve. The underlying cause of the irritation and compression of these nerves can be spinal disc herniation (herniated disc), lumbar spinal stenosis or piriformis. Herniated disc can be caused by a rotational movement against which the spinal discs are vulnerable. Spinal stenosis is caused by the narroving of the spinal canal, pressing on the spinal cord and sciatic nerve. Piriformis is a condition in which the sciatic nerve passes inside the piriformis muscle; when the muscle is shortened due to a variety of reasons, it compresses the sciatic nerve, causing the pain.

Sciatica: Treatment

Recently there have been some discussions on the use of drugs for sciatica treatment. Although certain analgesics and non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs were commonly used to treat sciatica symptoms, medical organizations like the UK National Health Service removed analgesic recommendations from the lower back pain treatment guidelines due to the lack of proof on the benefits of such treatments. Some clinical tests revealed that placebo treatment gave similar results to drug treatments, raising additional questions about such treatments.

Treatments for sciatica can be divided in two main groups: treatments aimed to remove the underlying causes, and treatments aimed to relieve the sciatic nerve pain. As there are a lot of different causes for sciatica as explained briefly above, the different treatment options are too wide a subject to be explained on one page. You will find more information regarding causes and treatments of sciatica on the articles published on this (Sciatica) section of our website