‘The (Fill in blank) diagnosed me with sciatica…’
This is something that I’ve heard many times from different patients, and people I’ve met. Practitioners such as I, and many others would not agree…putting it bluntly, sciatica is not a diagnosis!
I know there are going to be some people who are going to disagree with the last sentence, and will be saying that it definitely is, because they have it… I am not suggesting that it doesn’t exist, it is very much real and can be awful to try and deal with if you have ‘sciatica,’ but it is still not a diagnosis – it is a collection of symptoms because of something else.
Sciatica happens as a result of another factor – there are lots of different causes – but, the key thing is, some mechanism in life, whether it be the body or even an external influence, causes the symptoms. The main reason that I am writing this, is that I’ve unfortunately had people who have felt defined by this ‘diagnosis,’ and have felt that they have to just take pain killers any time they get pain and then live with it – I very much disagree. Let me try and give you an example…
You wake up one morning, and there is a puddle of water in your kitchen, it appeared out of nowhere, with no apparent reason. You clean it up. It is there the following morning. You clean it up. It is there the following morning. You clean it up…One day it may not happen, and then it goes away for a little while, and you don’t know why.
The puddle that keeps appearing, why? If this was your home, you would want to find out why, fix the problem, and understand how to deal with it if it was to occur again. This is the same with sciatica. Using pain killers will help the pain, but they do not necessarily fix the problem. The body is an amazing thing, and to some extent, it may either heal itself or adapt to deal with it in time. Let me just state at this point, I have nothing against pain killers and medicine, they all have a place, and are warranted.
Anyway, what actually is sciatica, and what does it feel like? In your lower back, the lumbar area, a nerve starts to form, which is about the thickness of your thumb, and travels down your glutes, down the back of your legs to your feet. This nerve can become irritated for a number of reasons and can cause some low-level symptoms, or it can be quite severe. These differ from person to person.
There can be aching, burning pains in the lower back, buttocks, there can be shooting ‘electric shock’ type pains down the back of the leg, numbness, tingling, like I say it differs from person to person. (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sciatica/)
Earlier on I said that sciatica is something that happens because of something, what are these mystical somethings? Again, there are a few different things, and some of the most common are: lumbar disc herniation, degeneration to the spine with bony growths (osteophytes), narrowing of space for the nerve, there are other less common causes also. (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7619.php#symptoms)
The main reason that I have been going on about this, is because manual therapy can potentially help people with sciatica. Using a variety of tests, we are able to understand what is contributing to symptoms and then use techniques to help ease these and give advice about what can be done so that it can be self-managed. People do not have to just ‘deal with it,’ and let it run its course – there is help available which also means that you do not need to rely solely on pain killers to cope with sciatica.
If ever you are ‘diagnosed’ with sciatica by someone, it might be worth asking them ‘why?’ because in the ‘why,’ may be the answer you need to help you feel better.