Sciatica with zero back pain

In My Humble Opinion
1

And I do mean zero; no pain, discomfort, soreness, sensitivity of any description ever at all. Nor does the sciatica pain react negatively or positively to changes in posture or any type of movement. Ever.

I know there are a number of causes for sciatica pain or sciatica-like pain that do not arise from the spine. I am asking you to share your experience or knowledge with these types of sciatica.

Or your experience with sciatica that does arise from the spine but is in practice completely an utterly unaffected in any discernible way by the position or movement of the spine. Ever. (Which does seem impossible to me… If you have a “bad”disc sending pain signals down a nerve it seems like moving the bones and cartilage encasing those nerves would have to create some kind of sensation but I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.

Thanks

2

As a sufferer of chronic sciatic issues, I would like to see how I can answer your OP, but I’m not sure I fully understand your first paragraph, as it then talks about different amounts of pain from different positions.

My sciatica is not caused directly by the spine, but by how my hip interacts with the nerve. When I have a flare up, there’s really no position that alleviates the pain.

However, I also have flare ups that do not cause pain, but only numbness and sometimes partial paralysis.

If these are the experiences you are seeking further information on, I am willing to share what I know and experience, but I’m not sure they are relevant, given your OP, and I don’t want to hijack if not.

3

When I first ruptured my discs, the back pain was acute and intense, but after several says it subsided to be barely noticeable.

However…

Then the sciatic pain made itself known for over a month by pain deep inside both butt checks and especially intense pain on the upper ( instep ) part of my right foot and ankle anytime I lay vertical for more than a few minutes. For a month I got maybe an hour, hour and a half sleep per day it was so bad.

4

OP’s avatar says it all.

5

I’m totally puzzled, too. The definition of sciatica is pain from compression of the sciatic nerve. If you don’t have pain you don’t have sciatica.

6

There could be an issue with your hip or with your piriformis muscle. Have you had it examined?

7

You are on the nose! Please continue!

(An MRI three years ago showed that my left hip was what I fondly refer to as a pile of rubble. So I have pain from that and I have sciatica pain, and I believe, and my doctors have told me it’s not an unreasonable belief, that the terrible condition of my hip bones have fucked up the nerves and soft tissue combined with those bones. I feel relatively certain that if I got a hip replacement most of my issues will go away but that’s not today’s option.)

8

Not precisely.

CT and MRI in the evaluation of extraspinal sciatica

9

Precisely.

Sciatica is the most frequently encountered symptom in neurosurgical practice and is observed in 40% of adults at some point in their lives. It is described as pain of the hip and the lower extremity secondary to pathologies affecting the sciatic nerve within its intraspinal or extraspinal course.

10

BACK pain.

11

I suffer back problems, I have since I was young, elementary school age. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but my age was in the single digits.

I don’t have a specific condition leading to my back issues. I had a doctor once examine my skeletal structure and tell me that my skeleton is weird. (Great to hear that from a doctor.) Not bad, not conforming to any specific disorder or anything, just very atypical. The way she put it, there was nothing to correct because that’s just how my body is, but it’s definitely not normal. And that may have led to problems I’ve had.

(To be more specific, it’s not a treatable medical condition, and any attempts to “correct” me would lead to far more problems than I already have.)

Anyway, a few years ago I suffered sciatica for the first time. It was acute and intense. It was like being tortured. I spent an entire night completely sleepless, because there was no position I could be in that didn’t cause agony. Laying down, standing, sitting up, reclining at an angle. All caused intense stabbing agony. I also couldn’t lift my right foot up at all, I had to drag it behind me like a zombie in a movie.

The only thing that resolved it was getting a cortisone shot in my hip, and then I started seeing chiropractors. Since then, I have had flare ups a few times, but nothing even close to that first instance (thank all that is holy).

But here’s the thing. As I said, I’ve suffered back issues my whole life. I know very well what back pain feels like. There was no back pain involved here. The pain was entirely with my leg/hip. My back didn’t hurt at all. That’s also the case with the smaller flare ups I experienced after the first one.

12

IANAD, but I do have a preliminary diagnosis of what is probably sciatica, uncertain because I’ve been postponing going in for diagnostic imaging. But it need not manifest as back pain,* nor any pain at all when not moving. In my case it’s a pain in the upper part of one leg when I initially rise from a sitting or lying position, and quickly gets better with movement. The latter symptom is apparently a prime indicator of sciatica.

* - As @Atamasama said – I had not seen their post earlier.

13

My sciatica arises from scoliosis and an injured hip. A couple of years ago, we tried giving me a cortisone shot, which did alleviate the pain for a couple of months. However, toward the time we were expecting it to wear off, I would occasionally suffer from left knee paralysis. Not that it couldn’t move. I just couldn’t feel it and I would crash down because I couldn’t make it support my considerable weight. A couple of months ago, the PA prescribed me a week on methyl-prednisolone and it calmed right down. Mind you, I had a bad reaction to the drug skin-wise and am finally recovered from that, but there was even a couple of days when I wasn’t limping. I still have problems, but I think I may have suffered a hairline crack in my pelvis and it is my butt cheek that gives me more pain than the sciatica does at present. So does my back.

All this said, I am NOT a doctor and I don’t recommend going in and demanding the treatment I got. But keep researching and asking questions of your doctor and physical therapist.

14

Yes. The only proper medical advice is NEVER DIAGNOSE YOURSELF and SEE A QUALIFIED PHYSICIAN.

15

I have been on methylprednisolone for i think five days… I am down to the last two rounds and praying fervently to feel SOMETHING Like relief… I have blown through all the neuro meds, nSAIDS, Etc. The ONLY things that can reliably lower intense pain levels in any discernible way (thus far, just starting with new pain doc) have been ice ice ice ice ice til I am numb, followed by heat. And real sleep for at least 2-3 hours at a minimum, which is challenging almost always, and when the exhaustion gets serioue, so does the pain.

I say “the” pain as though it is consistent in character, it is not. In addition to standard painintheass sciatica, I get bouts of crepitus all up and down my hip and leg that feels like a baseball bat. Then theres the blowtorch-to-the-quadriceps that will develop if I am not rigidly aware of how long I have been standing, even if I am only standining on my good leg. Thats sucha nightmare I have gotten good at getting of my feet before it develops. 15 Minutes seems to be the max.

Sitting in normal chairs, driving, the toilet… putting my trunk and thigh in a 90 degree configuration is guaranteed to blow up the ass along with miscellaneous painup and down. Making my wheelchair something of a backhanded torture device, but necessary if I want to eat anything other than bananas and yogurt. Can barely raise my foot off the gound to drop into pants, yet perversely, can ONLY pull my shoe onto my heel by lying down and bending my leg up behind me! And pretty sure I am currently a good inch shorter in the left leg.

Anyway, all this, and my back, my spine… just peachy, thanks. Not a twinge of any kind.

So yeah, I am thinking piriformis is being compromised by the rubble in my hip.

A definitive spinal answer is forthcoming, just got clearance for full imaging of both spine and hip, not just hip.

Between one thing and another, it has been this way now for several years. How I envy these reports of months… being able to walk without a walker or canes would make me feel like I had won the lottery.

It would also make my darling dog feel like he had won as well, since the first thing we will do is hit the dog park.

16

One really nice thing: handicapped plates. Awesome.

17

Those, I still need to ask for.

Has your doctor tried you on muscle relaxers? I hate the damn things but they do help. I take half a pill one night a week when I don’t have to get up early the next day. If anything, I actually get less sleep on the night I take it but it does help with the pained buttock. I refuse to take a whole pill but that’s just me. Again, it may not help you at all.

Have you talked to your doc about sleeping in the zero-gravity position?