What is the best treatment for sciatica?  And what IS sciatica, anyway?

You have a very large nerve that runs through your hip.  There is one on each side of your body.  This nerve is about the size of your finger in diameter.

When you have sciatic pain or nervy pain in your hip (buttock or gluteal muscle) or leg it’s caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve.

Nerves hate pressure!  If another part of your body–a bone or muscle–presses on your sciatic nerve it will complain by giving you nervy pain.

Disks in your spine that are “bulging” can press on the sciatic nerve.  (But what caused the disks to bulge?)

So can bone sometimes press.  And so can the muscle in your hip (butt) called the piriformis.

But why?

When the pressure comes from the piriformis muscle, it is often referred to as “false sciatica”–pseudosciatica or piriformis syndrome.  (A “syndrome” is a collection of symptoms.  Symptoms are things like numbness, pain or uncomfortable sensations.)

It’s very possible to have more than one thing pressing on your nerve.  That’s okay.  It just means that you will need treatment in more than one area.

Here’s the good news!

It’s not all that hard to treat naturally.  The success rate for treating the muscles that pull disks into the sciatic nerve are good.  Releasing or relaxing the tight gluteal muscle (piriformis) that presses on the nerve is also good.

Getting rid of the CAUSE of your sciatica is the best way to get rid of that nervy discomfort.

The sensation of sciatica is just a symptom–it means that something is pressing on the nerve.  Your job is to figure out what is annoying that nerve and get rid of whatever it is.

You may need a skilled, well-trained muscle therapist who understands how bodies work.

You don’t want to end up with “sciatica” pain for twenty years, like one elderly client of mine did.  It took only one treatment session for her sciatica to be gone.  Why?

Because I’m a skilled, well-trained muscle therapist.   🙂