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.
“Nerve flossing” is a practice which teaches a nerve how to glide and slide again without as much irritation. It desensitises the pain response by allowing the nerve to move more freely again, teaching the brain that it can experience more tension without causing damage. For the sciatic nerve, if you lay on you back and lift your knee (so your hip is at 90 degrees), hold behind the knee with a bent leg and gently straighten the leg. It’s okay to go to some increased tension, but this shouldn’t recreate any sharp pain. Gently kicking the leg up and down allows the sciatic nerve to glide better again. You’ve probably seen a footballer do this before a game.
There are several structures that could irritate the sciatic nerve, which includes the discs between the spine, the piriformis (a muscle in the bum which 50% of peoples sciatic nerve passes through), where the nerve exits the spine (the intervertebral foramen [IVF]). It’s best to see a professional to determine the root cause of the pain and that way they can advise what is best to do.
