Saturday 12th October
Sciatica is a type of nerve pain which affects the sciatic nerve. There are plenty of different nerves in the body that can become irritated, but nerve pain in your arm isn’t sciatica. The sciatic nerve comes out of the low back (L4/5, L5/S1 and S1-3) and goes down the back of the legs. At the knee it has two branches. One goes down the calf, under the heel and foot, whilst the other runs down the outside of the shin and on top of the foot.
Common sensations that occur with sciatica are burning along the path of the nerve, an electric shock along the nerve path, low back pain, weakness into the affected side, difficulty bending and sitting. Some people describe it as though a hot poker is pressing the nerve or as if they’ve been stabbed with a knife. Obviously, this is not something anyone wants to experience, and is very painful!
When a nerve is irritated, there are a few things you probably don’t want to do. Nerves don’t like being stretched. You can imagine the nerves coming out of the low back and down the legs as pieces of string. Pulling them taught and leaving them in a stretched / tight position makes things worse. So you don’t want to stretch your hamstrings when you have sciatica.
Here is one of the best ways to help relieve some pressure on your sciatic nerve!
Lay on your back and bring one knee towards your chest, with the knee bent towards your chest, and the other leg straight on the floor.
Hold the back of your hamstring just under the knee (if you can’t reach try using a towel under the bent legs knee, and hold this with your hands)
Gently extend the knee, straightening the leg towards the ceiling and ease it back down towards the floor.
Never go to the point of pain
You want to work this movement within a comfortable range
