Sciatica is a pain in the butt. Literally!
Sciatica can cause chronic or episodic discomfort, ranging from a warm, moist sensation in your thigh to burning, shooting agony down your leg. Yes, that’s how this pain feels like.
However, before delving into sciatica treatment at home, we must understand sciatic nerve and sciatica pain.
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What is Sciatic Nerve?
The largest nerves in the body, the gluteus maximus, are not the only ones that make up the sciatic nerves. They also go from the low back to your toes. The nerves leave the spine in the lower back between two vertebrae, go behind each hip joint, down the buttock, and back into each foot on either side.
What is Sciatica Pain?
Most people are familiar with Sciatica – lower back discomfort that travels down the left or right buttock and the leg and occasionally to the foot. Even if it is hard to believe, sciatica usually goes away with conservative treatment in three months, even if the pain you feel is intense.
Further typical signs of sciatica include:
- Lower back pain generally
- A back or leg ache that gets worse when seated
- Leg pain that is burning or tingling
- Leg or foot heaviness, numbness, or difficulty moving
- Ongoing discomfort on one side of the back
- A sharp pain that makes it difficult to get out of bed
According to Dr. Muhammad Siddique Hamid, a renowned Orthopedic Surgeon, 90% of sciatica patients recover without surgery, most of them in a matter of weeks, regardless of the source. If your sciatic nerve pain is due to an injury or pregnancy, sciatica treatment at home is all you need to know. If you don’t get treatment for sciatica, the condition can worsen over time and harm your lower back and hips.
Home Remedies for Sciatic Nerve Pain!
How to treat Sciatica at home? Even if you don’t know what’s causing your sciatica, there are things you may do at home to lessen the discomfort.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 1: Don’t Fear to Exercise!
Although it may go against your natural inclinations to exercise when your back or legs ache, low-impact sports like water aerobics, stationary riding, and yoga help lessen the pain severity. These also help strengthen your back to fend off future back problems.
According to a study, prolonged rest can worsen back and leg pain. Instead, include little activity in your daily routine to relieve sciatica. The essential word here is gentle: your workout should always be easy and comfortable.
Walking around the block is an excellent exercise that maintains the health of your spine without causing any more harm. It causes the production of endorphins, which lessen your perception of pain.
Moreover, exercise supports your spine, for example, core exercises like planks; a stronger spine is more protected against pain. These are the best sciatica pain exercises.
In addition to supporting the spine and relieving pressure on spinal nerves, strong back muscles may lessen the frequency and severity of sciatica attacks.
Read more about pelvic floor exercises to strengthen your muscles.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 2: It’s Okay to Stretch it Out
Sciatica self-care includes a little stretching. Stretch out gently each day as part of your exercise regimen. Orthopedic specialists at Iqra Medical Complex say stretching is an excellent approach to increasing the range of motion in your spine and strengthening core and spinal strength.
Moreover, many stretches are easy enough to perform. You can easily practice stretching exercises while watching the news or your favorite movie.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 3: Grab Some Ice Cubes and Make an Ice Pack
Ice therapy can help relieve acute, searing sciatica pain.
The chilling temperature helps constrict your blood vessels and limit blood flow when you apply ice therapy to your back pelvis (the location of your sciatic nerve roots). It produces a numbing effect and rapidly relieves pain. In addition to cooling down your muscles, ice therapy lessens muscle spasms.
Using ice treatment at home is simple. You should wrap a few ice cubes in a thick towel or get a bag of frozen veggies from your freezer.
Make sure to space out your ice therapy sessions by two hours and only apply them for around 15 minutes at a time.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 4: Employ Alternate Heating Pads
Heat therapy might help relieve sciatica pain in your lower back and legs. For up to 8 hours, a conventional sticky heat wrap can deliver comfortable, mild heat.
To prevent skin and tissue injury, be careful to follow the instructions on the container. The heat wrap sticks to your skin directly, and you can use it beneath clothing.
If you get a sciatic flare-up, you can easily use a heating pad, even if you are in the office or at home.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 5: Refresh Your Posture
Whether you are working at your desk or just unwinding at home, if you stay in place for an extended period, your sciatica pain may become more intense.
Using appropriate posture and changing your stance every 20 minutes will help relieve pressure on your spine and lessen sciatica discomfort.
Learn more about the importance of good posture.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 6: Head to Your Medicine Cabinet
One of the best remedies for sciatic relief at home is using OTC medicines. When sciatica symptoms appear, over-the-counter (OTC) non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIDs) may help relieve them. In contrast to acetaminophen (Tylenol), which simply lessens pain, NSAIDs can be a useful alternative because they treat both inflammation and pain.
Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), aspirin (Ecotrin), and naproxen are some examples of OTC NSAIDs (Aleve).
However, NSAIDs have health hazards that you should be aware of before using them, so talk to your doctor first about their safety.
Sciatica Self-Care Tip # 7: Stay Active
Many sciatica patients believe that resting in bed or relaxing in a chair can speed up their recovery. It doesn’t.
The first couple of days after sciatica pain begins, you can rest. But, after that, staying in bed usually makes matters worse rather than better. Movement relieves pain in several ways:
- Your muscles become stronger and support your spine.
- It can increase the range of motion and flexibility.
- All body parts, including the wounded ones, receive increased blood flow, which hastens the healing process.
- It lessens the sense of pain.
When to See a Doctor?
How to cure sciatica permanently? It is best to consult an Orthopedic Surgeon and discuss your situation if moving around makes your sciatica pain worse.
