Board 8 > Sciatica is suffering

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been dealing with it since mid-December. I was at a work holiday party and we all got out of an Uber, but it was snowy and slick and I slipped and landed my tailbone on the edge of it hard. I didn't notice anything until I was waiting for the plane two days later. Walked around DC, did a Beat the Bomb thing where I had to be athletic, all good. But standing in the airport and then sitting on the plane was absolute agony.

After I got back, it was just increasingly worse. For those unaware, it's the result of a lower lumbar injury (in my case it seems more likely it's a hernia), and it pinches the sciatica nerve in your leg and just sends pain throughout that. Could barely walk, just terrible, awful pain through my whole leg. Couldn't sleep at all because of the pain. It slowly got a little bit better, but I saw my doctor and he told me to wait six weeks.

Six weeks go by and it was actually almost gone. Minimal pain from there. But then it slowly started to come back. Not as terrible as it was before, but more just enough pain to be annoying.

Then this Friday I stepped off a ledge that was a little bit deeper than I expected and from there, the pain was just back to some of the worst all over again. Can't stand up straight, sitting hurts, laying down hurts, I haven't been able to get maybe more than 3-4 hours of sleep every night cumulatively, if I'm lucky, because I am just suddenly jerked awake by the pain. I had fortunately made an appointment with my doctor again before this, so he finally gave me some strong drugs to deal with the pain now. I just take some anti-nerve pain drug at night to help sleep, so now it's doubled the dosage for me tonight.

The absolute worst pain I've been in my life. Going to an orthopedic soon, but I can't believe how something like this has completely derailed my life.

geesh

try physical therapy if you can/your injury allows for it. It really helped mine

If it makes you feel any better, I dropped my phone onto my uhh ya know. And I had the worst pain for about 4 months at even the slightest feather touch from last October till January.

that fucking sucks

If it went away that much on its own, it should do it again, and with enough time hopefully a minor thing won't make it flare up again.

colliding posted...

try physical therapy if you can/your injury allows for it. It really helped mine

I definitely can't now. Earlier before it came back so hard I probably could have though.

My doctor mentioned an epidural is a possibility. Can't say I'm thrilled for the giant needle method, but hey. Desperate enough at this point.

I feel for you, my friend. I've been struggling with on-and-off sciatic nerve pain for over eight years.

The initial injury happened while I was jogging on a treadmill in a crappy hotel gym. I felt a completely foreign pain go down my right glute and leg. I flew home in extreme discomfort, and my dad - who is a doctor and has also dealt with this same thing - immediately diagnosed me. He told me that unfortunately, this might be something I need to live with for life, and that the best thing to do is take healthy steps to mitigate it.

I hate to tell you that it may be the same deal for you, as I'm sure most people recover from sciatica completely, but that sadly has not been the case for me. I'll often go pain-free for weeks or months and think I'm in the clear only to re-aggravate it via weightlifting or just randomly. In my experience, the best thing to mitigate sciatica has inarguably been weight loss. I've never been massively overweight, but there are times I've packed on maybe 35 pounds more than my ideal weight, and that's when my pain has been its most unbearable. The lighter I get, the less of an issue it becomes.

The other advice I can give you (and I'm being hypocritical here because this is advice I often ignore myself) is to be disciplined about strengthening your core. Anytime you strengthen your abs and obliques, you are helping your back, improving your posture, and lowering the risk and intensity of sciatica.

I reinjured my back most recently a couple months ago and decided to try yoga classes at my local gym. I've only been going for a month and already feel significant improvements in my core strength, range of motion, and pain management. I'd recommend a good yoga class, or at least a core strenthening routine.

Best of luck, and I hope you beat this!

That really sucks man. I'm so sorry for you. I'm hoping I can get it resolved before it gets to that level. Have you tried surgery or epidurals or anything? I've heard they're all not a sure thing to fix it too.

And thanks for the advice. It's all something I'm going to keep in mind when I get to a better physical place.

Sure thing, I know how awful this feels and am always bummed out when someone tells me they're going through it too (which is becoming more common as we grow older).

I've considered surgery but have gotten wildly different opinions from different people. The specialist I consultes obviously pushed for it and said that it was minimally invasive and usually a cure-all. On the other hand, I've had friends and family (who are medical professionals) beg me NOT to get back surgery unless the pain is so agonizing that I'm essentially crawling to the hospital. I continue to leave surgery as a last-ditch option in favor of more holistic approaches.

I've also been told that this is often hereditary. My dad had such severe sciatica when he was around my age that he was largely bedridden for months.