I don’t know if I just stumbled on to something or if it was just a coincidence. I have dealt with sciatica for years but recently had an unusually painful episode. All I could do was sit, I couldn’t lay down or walk for more than a minute because the pain was so intense. From my lower back through my leg to my foot. Anyway, after a week of not being able to lie down I decided to see if I could force myself through the pain into sleep. Anyway, I lied down and immediately the pain started building, it seemed to peak after about 1 minute, I wanted to see how long I could hold it so I tried some kind of meditation I guess you would call it. I lasted 7 minutes and got up. I came back about 1/2 hour later and I could lie down with no pain at all. That has been 24 hours and it has been improving ever since. Did I do something or was it just ready to start healing?
Meditation can definitely help with helping muscles to relax. But it’s also possible that, by laying down, you stretched out the right muscles. I do know that, when I had sciatica, the doctor would recommend stretches. And I also know that, when I’ve had cramps, sometimes just holding still in that particular position allows the muscles to correct themselves.
And, yes, I know that sciatica is nerve pain. But a lot of times the nerve pain is due to a muscle called the piriformis which compresses against the sciatic nerve. That was my problem, at least.
Mom’s problem was in her spine, and she also found the stretching exercises helped.
I’m not sure if what I had was sciatica, I never went to a doctor about it because it wasn’t that severe. The pain I had seemed to conform to various descriptions I read, and it seemed to arise from too much time sitting on a hard chair.
I don’t remember how I decided to try this, but I found that leaning backwards, stretching as far as I could and holding it for as long as I could (not that long, under 30 seconds), then repeating another time or two, really helped a lot. And I put a cushion on that chair, which also helped.
I did the exact same thing a few years ago I added a cushion to my chair and it made a big difference
Years ago I kept getting bouts of really bad lower back pain with free bonus muscle spasm. I was given a set of stretching exercises to relieve the problem, except they were too painful to perform. So the doctor gave me a script for lots of Valium. With the aid of that a couple of times a day I was able to do the exercises and, after a few days, get rid of the problem. Kind of the same principle as the OP without the mental fortitude exhibited there.
I don’t know what I would do now, I don’t think any doctor would prescribe Valium so liberally.
I did what I think are standard exercises - here’s the NHS version, but I suspect they’re the same in other countries:
I also found gentle swimming (on my back) and warm baths helped. But there was quite a long period when it felt as though the pain was dead-but-it-wouldn’t-lie-down, if you see what I mean.
I have chronic back trouble and sciatica due to what I believe is a pinched nerve from a bulging disk in my lower back. Something that helps which I really just found accidentally by trying everything I could think of was to decompress my spine by placing my hands either side of a corner of the kitchen worktop (so I am dacing at 45 degrees into the corner) and then locking my elbows and taking all my weight on my arms/hands. If I keep my back straight and bend my knees 90 degrees so my feet are off the ground, then at the same time try to relax my back as much as possible, it helps massively to take the pressure off any pinching. Thought it might be worth a try!
When I was keeping up with the exercises I had far less problems.
My Dr will not give me any kind of a narcotic for sleep or pain. I asked if he could just give me 4 sleeping pills a month and he won’t even do that.
That sounds like it might be worth a shot.
You may need to go to pain clinic. That’s what I had to do. GP’s don’t like prescribing pain meds anymore. A lot of surgeons won’t do it anymore either. Pain clinics got (earned?) a bad rap back in the Oxycontin days, but they are much better now. You can also get cortisone shots and even spinal implants to over-stimulate the sciatic nerve (it essentially goes numb and the pain goes away). Edited to clarify that the shots and implants can be done at pain clinics.
I’ve already had a couple surgeries due to disk degeneration and stenosis. My surgeon says my next surgery will be to fuse my L4 and L5. So I rely on the shots every couple of years and try to keep my core muscles strong.
I think (at least I haven’t seen any evidence to support this hypothesis) that working the core muscles increases their size, much like doing curls will make your biceps get bigger. As the muscles attached to the vertebrae swell in size, they help keep the vertebrae farther apart, reducing the pinching on my sciatic nerve.
I know my back muscles are weak, in the past 3 years I have mostly just sat at a desk. I seem to lack self discipline when it comes to exercise