Help with sciatica please!!

groggylbc

Legend (inyourownmind)
Sep 15, 2006
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going on 2 months...and not going away. some days are better then others. Stretching, acupuncture, chiro.....not sure what else to do. Any suggestions? xoxoxo
 

Swallow Tail

Billy Hamilton status
Oct 6, 2017
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Your Mom’s House
Strengthen up the glutes, core etc. .

stretching, chiro, massage etc are all temporary bandaids at best.

Try sleeping on your back w a large pillow under your knees, change your sleeping posture.

I’m speaking from long-term (decades) personal experience w sciatica and other, more severe nerv/spine issues.

that referenced thread does in fact have useful information
 
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Mr Doof

Duke status
Jan 23, 2002
24,850
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San Francisco, CA
After doing some roofing work in my 40s I had an an episode of sciatica.

Asked about it here, got advice that sounded a little out there but at the same time, I thought, "Well, he does have the nerve pathway right, so what the heck, I'll try it."

This is me paraphrasing the advice:

1 Get tennis ball (and maybe a golf ball or baseball because bodies are different, start with tennis ball and try others if needed)
2 Put tennis ball on the carpet
3 Sit or lie or just plant your butt down on the tennis ball such that the tennis ball fits into the hollow of one cheek..about right where the blue circle is...essentially find the coccyx and move over a scoosh till the tennis ball settles in:
1620428908824.png

4 Move around a smidge so that you get the muscles to deform a little, then if all goes "well" your body may give a zing when the nerve is pressed.

5 Rest there a bit, relax into it. Shouldn't burn or feel like tearing but should feel similar to getting a back rub and the "muscle knot" gets hit

6 After a few minutes do the other side.

7 Come back the first side, relax into it again and it should be a bit less of a 'zing", again like getting a back rub on tight muscles.

8 Do some of the other stretches in previous responses and try this again. A single session probably lasted an hour.

9 Oh, and hydrate and lay off the alcohol for a while, eat real food, get some sleep, and no just sitting on your butt all day at work or watching TV for a while.

I did this for a few days, sometimes 2-3 times a day, and it could be just the placebo effect, it could just be doing the other things, but great googly mooglies did the sciatic get better in a few hours and after I kept it up for a few days, well, got better. Maybe not an instant perfect fix, but really, after I did this, I had some relief on the first day.

This advice came from the fellow who once espoused the aquatic ape theory of human evolution, grew (grows) hydroponic tomatoes, is a recumbent bike proponent, and knows that wheat makes the gut permeable which leads to systemic inflammation, and agricultural diet/lifestyle will eventually lead to massive die-off of the human population (possibly?) helped along by homosexual relations. To which all I can say is, "Thanks Squidley for proposing a fix. It helped me."
 

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tacos

Michael Peterson status
Feb 12, 2006
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LB —> SF
romanian deadlifts
romanian deadlifts
I don’t think I ever got back to you in the other thread but I had been doing them, not really helping, I’ve been doing a lot of high rep low weight squats since it’s not causing pain and has nice ROM. I‘m just trying to keep moving, putting lifting on the back burner now and have been doing a ton of bjj lately.


And to OP: movement.

Here’s a good post from one of the barbell medicine crew’s Instagram:
http://instagr.am/p/COia5MogoHF/
edit: found a way to copy and paste the caption:

Is there more to life that squat, bench, and deadlift? Today we ask life’s existential questions. Sure, if you want to get better at only S/B/D training those lifts and their different iterations is likely the best way. But what is the goal is to be a more rounded athlete, or just to be able to do your daily tasks without much issue? Or, what happens when an athlete has a setback and cannot S/B/D for a while. Maybe they even have to perform some sets below RPE 5. Are they suddenly less of an athlete? Or are they maybe less of an athlete for ONLY being really good at three lifts. Good ole NNT might even go so far as to call those athletes “fragile.”

Nowhere in the physical activity guidelines does the resistance training recommendations demand that you pull 2x bodyweight. It amazingly does not state that perfect form is needed to perform said lifts either. Sometimes I think we forget there are more weights to move than just with a barbell in our hands or on our backs. The progressive overload may in fact be how much we are overweighting our expectations for the miracle of S/B/D.

When an athlete does endure a setback that takes away S/B/D, sometimes we may need to open up the program, add in some different exercises, and not be so intense. That is okay. If an athlete’s primary focus is powerlifting though, it is also okay to start paring back those exercises as symptoms regress. We don’t necessarily need to keep the umbrella open all the time. It doesn’t only need to be open when it’s raining. Sometimes, it may just be a little hot with what is going on and we’re just looking for some shade.

There are no good or bad exercises but often the weight we assign to how important an exercise is can make it helpful or harmful. It is not that a special rehab exercise is going to “fix” or “prevent” some issue and having a mediocre total in powerlifting does not automatically qualify one for peak athleticism. The guidelines advocate for movement, not specific movements. We often forget that when that one specific movement we want to do is not available for a little while that there are literal countless other ways to move. Those other ways help us keep moving forward.
Havoc might consider this wimpy since it doesn’t recommend a 400lb deadlift for general health and wellness ;)
 
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One-Off

Tom Curren status
Jul 28, 2005
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I don’t think I ever got back to you in the other thread but I had been doing them, not really helping, I’ve been doing a lot of high rep low weight squats since it’s not causing pain and has nice ROM. I‘m just trying to keep moving, putting lifting on the back burner now and have been doing a ton of bjj lately.


And to OP: movement.

Here’s a good post from one of the barbell medicine crew’s Instagram:
http://instagr.am/p/COia5MogoHF/
Read the caption. Havoc might consider this wimpy since it doesn’t recommend a 400lb deadlift for general health and wellness ;)
That was a good quote. Reasonable.
 
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Bob Dobbalina

Miki Dora status
Feb 23, 2016
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piriformis massage
I've gotten relief from grinding away the edges on the piriformis zone. I use a lacrosse ball, it's denser than a tennis ball.

Does it "fix" anything?
no

Did it make it feel better?
yep. along with rolling it underneath my hips or QL, it took the edge off for a while.

Ice
heat
ball
rest
light movement that doesn't hurt too bad
aleeve for a while.

If it gets worse, it's probably worse and you need to talk to a professional.
 
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Havoc

Phil Edwards status
May 23, 2016
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in da hood next to paradise
I've gotten relief from grinding away the edges on the piriformis zone. I use a lacrosse ball, it's denser than a tennis ball.

Does it "fix" anything?
no

Did it make it feel better?
yep. along with rolling it underneath my hips or QL, it took the edge off for a while.

Ice
heat
ball
rest
light movement that doesn't hurt too bad
aleeve for a while.

If it gets worse, it's probably worse and you need to talk to a professional.
or it just gets better regardless of what u end up doing. these things resolve on their own many times. in the meantime, strengthen ur back duuu
 
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Woke AF

Tom Curren status
Jul 29, 2009
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Southern Tip, Norcal
In other words, deadlift.

When I was still in the "acute"phase, my PT gave me these to do (along with many other bodyweight exercises and stretches)
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View attachment 109011View attachment 109010
These stretches have helped mine. Comes and goes mostly gone the last few years. Another stretch is to lie on back and bend and cross one leg over to the other side. Twist upper torso arms out stretched to the opposite direction.