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“Having a chronic illness is like waking up and realizing it’s Monday, every single day.” — Unknown

The same can be said for having chronic pain.

Pain management may be necessary for pain that cannot be avoided, but sometimes our ongoing pain can be relieved, if only we knew how. And, for many, sciatica can be one of those pains.

Sciatic Pain: When Nothing Helps and It Always Hurts

Sciatic pain, or sciatica, is a fairly common affliction that can range from mildly painful and irritating to severely painful and crippling. 

Harvard Health notes that sciatica is one of the most common, yet misunderstood, types of pain, and as many as 40 percent of people will get it during their life, becoming more frequent as you age.

According to information found at the Mayo Clinic website,

“Sciatica refers to pain that radiates along the path of the sciatic nerve, which branches from your lower back through your hips and buttocks and down each leg. Typically, sciatica affects only one side of your body.

Sciatica most commonly occurs when a herniated disk, bone spur on the spine or narrowing of the spine (spinal stenosis) compresses part of the nerve. This causes inflammation, pain and often some numbness in the affected leg.”

So, what does sciatica feel like?

The most distinctive sign of sciatica is pain that radiates from your lower back into the back or side or your legs. It can range from a mild ache to sharp, severe pain. You can also get numbness, tingling, and weakness in your leg or foot, according to one source

The good news is that, while common causes are related to herniated disks, bone spurs, or spinal stenosis, other types of nerve entrapment can also be the cause. And, much of the time, sciatic pain and its causes can be treated effectively.

Using Active Release Technique® to Treat Sciatica

Once it has been determined that the cause of your leg pain is definitely a sciatic nerve, an assessment and analysis of your gait may be in order. This can be done by incorporating techniques such as Anatomy in Motion, or AiM for short, and possibly a Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA).

Part of this assessment and analysis is to determine which muscles in your back, hips, and legs are strong and which muscles are weak. This can help us determine what may have led to the development of sciatica.

Once sciatica has been identified with a high degree of certainty, then the best course of treatment can be carried out to help bring about full relief and recovery.

Active Release Technique®, or ART®, can be applied at this point. ART® helps to break up the scar tissue, or adhesions that may have developed around the muscles through which the sciatic nerve travels. These adhesions and any subsequent nerve entrapment can cause a number of symptoms including diminished flexibility, movement, and function, as well as nerve pain. 

Treating sciatica with ART® can be help by breaking up adhesions and scar tissue, as well as reducing any muscle spasms that may be contributing to the nerve impingement and subsequent pain. The therapy can relieve the pressure from the nerve, which then allows the symptoms to ease and disappear. 

When applying Active Release Technique®, we treat the soft tissue of the area through the use of manual, or hands-on, treatment to apply pressure and prescribed movements on the tendons, muscles, and fascia associated with the specific region involved.

There Is Hope for Relief from Chronic Sciatic Pain

Are you experiencing leg muscle or joint pain as a result of sciatica? Does it seem to linger, or has it become a recurring problem?

We invite you to call for an appointment. It’s during your initial consultation and assessment that we will learn all we can about your present pain and condition, along with any history of pain or discomfort, as well as your current level of activity.

Treating and relieving your sciatica pain starts once we understand where and how the condition started.

A full examination will help us determine which form of treatment is best suited to get you on your road to recovery. Your trust in us is key, as is your honesty. Ultimately, getting your body healthy and working properly is the only way to achieve total recovery.

Our goal is to work through the sequence of pain and dysfunction in order to get your body healthy and working properly and to achieve total recovery.

We know that, with time and patience on your part, it is possible to bring relief from pain. Our overall goal is to identify why and how this condition began and then correct it with as little discomfort as possible, so you can return to life without fear of it returning.

Contact us now at (707) 636-4404 or use our online booking form to set up a consultation and an office walkthrough. At the end of the day, we are here for you and to help you achieve a happy and healthy life.