Sciatica is Debilitating 8 Things That Really Do Help
It’s not just a throwaway statement by yoga teachers; yoga is one of the things you can do to help with pain relief. I read an article recently about the various things people can do to help themselves with the excruciating and debilitating pain of sciatica. It wasn’t just a fluffy article in a yoga or wellness magazine either it was an article based on scientific fact and NHS advice. Telling me what I already know it reminded me of the importance to share useful advice and tips with as wide an audience as possible. It also reminded me of how and why I returned to daily yoga practice and signing up for another 200 hour teacher training course.
Yoga as Pain Relief
Yoga can help with pain relief as long as you are careful to work within your limitations by choosing a teacher who works with your body how it is on the day. Yoga is a therapy for anxiety, low self-esteem and much more. YWL is about connecting with the self, learning and using the tools you have right there within you. Breathe work and meditation even when used standalone can be useful in the battle against pain, but bring in the full trilogy of breath, mindful meditation and gentle careful movement then you gain something special. Trust me, I know first hand the strength and power of yoga for pain relief.
How yoga helps pain relief is like a many petaled lotus flower, you gradually learn to join the dots, fit the jigsaw together, develop
your own power.
What is Sciatica
Various things cause sciatica, but the result is compression or irritation to the sciatic nerve. The pain begins as a sharp, burning or shooting pain and it travels from the lower back or buttock down the leg. The pain can begin as tingling or numbness in the back or buttock and then frequently increases in pain threshold terms from mild to unbearable. Sometimes it is identified by weakness of that leg.
The NHS website says that if you “only” have back pain it is probably not sciatica. This is not to belittle back pain, back pain is a serious issue, but we are tackling sciatica here.
NHS recommendations to ease sciatica pain:
· Move about
· Try heat packs or ice packs on the painful areas
· Use over the counter painkillers such as paracetamol but not NSAIDS
· Start gentle exercise
· Use regular exercises for sciatica
NHS guidelines say
· Do not sit or lie down for long periods, BUT do
try and continue normal activities
· Sit up straight
· Begin or continue gentle exercise
· Hold heat packs to the painful locations
· Ask a pharmacist about pain relief
You should see a GP when:
· The pain hasn’t improved despite following the
above guidelines for a few weeks
· It’s getting worse
· Prevents normal activities
Piriformis Syndrome
In the UK piriformis syndrome is lumped in with sciatica unless you are fortunate enough to get a scheme of physiotherapy as part of
your treatment.
The piriformis are narrow muscles that run from your lower spine, one through each buttock to the top of your thigh. They aid in most lower body movements.
1. Swimming is Best
Probably the best exercise for sciatica is swimming. In common with most types of back pain swimming offers the right type of gentle exercise.
Water supports our weight; it is a great option for many types of physical pain. A warm swimming pool will also soothe the muscles and help free up stiffness, whilst the gentle movement creates resistance. Aerobic exercise improves nerve pain, it actually has an anti-inflammatory effect and the buoyancy from water supporting the joints and crucially the spine means you can work aerobically without stressing joints.
Swimming is not for everyone, if you don’t swim, another way to benefit from the support of water exercise is to attend an aquafit class. Speak to the instructor first about why you want to attend.
2. Yoga Helps
There are exercises and stretches we practice in regular yoga that help prevent and ease sciatic pain.
I believe that prevention is better than cure, the gentle stretches, lengthening and stretching we do in gentle and more active yoga classes can help to prevent things like sciatica, although there are no guarantees. If you have sciatica attending a gentle hatha beginners’ class or one to one sessions with a trained teacher can help in the toolkit to getting free of the debilitating pain. Yin yoga specifically targets things like the piriformis, spinal ligaments and with careful placement of the props we use is frequently a great help to those battling various types of back pain, sciatica and piriformis syndrome.
A 70 year old man, a gardener had suffered many years of
agony having first experiences sciatica in his 30s, he acquired it not from
gardening but through overdoing it at the gym where he trapped a nerve and then
suffered constant pain. He said it
became so bad that he couldn’t sleep. A
friend suggested yoga, and he was given a gentle back strengthening routine to
do every morning. Within two weeks the
pain eased and eventually disappeared. (from an article by Meiki Leonard).
Another lady, a university lecturer, hurt her back during
lockdown, partly through spending so much time teaching online sat at her
computer and partly through moving heavy pots in the garden. She took pain relief but found an online yoga
teacher who offered her core strengthening exercises that helped, as soon as
she could she attended a regular weekly yoga class and a Zumba class.
Other Options
Acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, osteopathy are just a few of the complementary treatments that can also help and some doctors recommend osteopath and chiropractic treatment for short term relief.
You can find complementary practitioners in your area via BRCP a register of highly qualified practitioners with high standards and insurance. It’s a good place to start if you’d like to try an ancient or alternative treatment to help with sciatica.
3. Acupuncture
Derived from ancient Chinese medicine, acupuncture involves very fine needles being inserted into certain anatomical places of the body. Acupuncture is a very old practice that many swear by for a variety of problems.
4. Acupressure
Acupressure is also an ancient treatment, it’s a specific type of massage known as a manual therapy technique that targets trigger points
within soft tissue and muscles.
5. Chiropractic
Chiropractic treatment focuses on spinal health. Practitioners physically manipulate the body to support the spine, bones, muscles and joints with a focus on spinal alignment.
6. Osteopathy
An osteopath aids health through a mixture of gentle and forceful physical manipulation techniques to stretch and massage to increase
mobility, correct misalignment, and more through based on their assessment of where your problem lies.
7. Keep Moving
By keeping moving and finding what works for you, you can ease the sciatica and many fully recover.
The NHS suggest a set of exercises to help sciatica, follow the link for their videos. You will see that many of the exercises they recommend are already familiar to you. However, I wouldn’t recommend following those exercises unless they are already familiar to you. I believe that you should find a professional physiotherapist, osteopath or yoga teacher to go through a scheme of exercises with you if you don’t want to attend an open class.
The gentle stretches, twists and rolls of yoga are designed to lengthen and strengthen your muscles and in turn improve the support of the spine and skeletal aspects of the body.
8. Breathe
Breathwork is a powerful tool and breathing to power the movement of gentle yoga exercises give you an advantage over those who don’t practice yoga.
Learning the power of the breath, its therapeutic qualities and how using it aids movement is a massive part in your arsenal against
sciatica.
I have a friend in his early 60s who injured himself when he slipped and not only did it not get better it got worse. Painkillers were not helping, and he eventually got a doctor’s appointment, followed by x-rays and sciatica was diagnosed. He was really struggling with the pain, and I suggested some gentle yoga stretches would help. He poo pooed that idea, but I did get him to go to an osteopath and that helped a lot, but he was still suffering. So, I went through some breathwork with him and taught him how taking an inhale or an exhale at the appropriate time would help and it does help him a lot.
Exercises we practice in yoga that may help you include:
· Supine figure 4’s
· Knee rolls
· Knees to chest
· Extended child’s pose
· Bridge pose
· Half lord of the fishes – variations
· Legs up the wall
· Forward prone back extension
Avoid On-line and Newspaper Gadgets and “Cures”
Look online for sciatica or glance through the weekend papers and there are gadgets including corsets, electrical pulse machines and all sorts. Please don’t fall into that trap. Medical experts say that movement is the key to relief and improvement, not gadgets especially if they limit movement.
Finally
Of course, I’m going to suggest you book into a yoga class with me! Personally, swimming mixed with a mixture of slow, gentle yoga and gradual core work really helped when I had a back problem. Keeping moving was the biggest aid, sitting or lying down created stiffness and pain. This blog is based on the information I have drawn from my yoga teacher training, including CPD with a physiotherapist and an article by Meike Leonard, a leading health and medical writer for UK newspapers.
Online links
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/exercises-sciatica-problems/
https://brcp.uk/find-a-practitioner/
Inspired by an article by Meiki Leonard