Brief Answer:
Sciatica! Sciatica! Why Forth Art Thou? At least Why Me?

Detailed Answer:
What's in a name? That which we call Sciatica. By any other name would be as Painful!"

Good evening. I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Saghafi from the XXXXXXX Ohio region of the world.

As a former sufferer of sciatica I can share with you some of my own experiences and hopefully that will add to the other information that I will provide to answer your question.

The causes of sciatica are anything that can injure, irritate, or otherwise compromise the sciatic nerve which is present on each side of the body. The sciatic nerve is the largest and thickest single nerve in the body. It originates from the lower back and can be found passing through the buttock region and traveling down the back of the thigh behind the knee and into the back of the calf finally terminating in the foot.

The following list represents a number of ways the sciatic nerve can be either compressed or irritated:

Disc herniation, degenerative disc disease, spinal canal stenosis (narrowing), misalignment of the vertebral bodies, and piriformis syndrome are some ways that the sciatic nerve can be hurt. Coughing and sneezing if violent enough have been known to irritate and cause problems with the sciatic nerve.

The treatment for sciatica has traditionally involved what common sense would suggest should be bedrest but a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine actually showed that when a group of patients with sciatica were asked to be on near strict bedrest for a period of up to 12 weeks and compared to a group of patients who were asked to simply "take it easy" and be careful with activities that both groups reported equal rates of improvement. In other words, this study would suggest that strict bedrest and time off from work may not really be nearly as helpful to healing as once thought.

The other way to treat sciatica is to discover the causative factor and address it directly so that if it is compression that some form of intervention to release pressure on the nerve (e.g. disc compression) is performed. Proper physical therapy to include stretching exercises, low back muscle conditioning exercises, and gentle hip rotational exercises are usually the first lines of physical therapy intervention. Medications range from anti-inflammatories to muscle relaxants to antidepressants (for their properties of reducing pain perception in the brain), and analgesics of varying potency and efficacy. Yoga and Pilates as well as WATER JOGGING are some of my favorite ACTIVE activities I recommend to my patients.

In terms of recovery time each individual is entirely different and each circumstance can only be validated and evaluated upon its own merits. Often times, with proper supervision and vigilance sciatica patients can recover within a matter of weeks to months. In my particular case my sciatica persisted for 9 months before it finally subsided. In my brother's case it has persisted for nearly 30 years. Therefore, it really is tough to predict with any accuracy what the outcome of an individual will be but being proactive in doing exercises, avoiding activities that can re-aggravate the injury generally results in very good to excellent prognoses in most patients.

Take a look at this link if you can and I think you'll understand even better some of what I'm talking about in this response.

http://www.medicinenet.com/sciatica_pictures_slideshow/article.htm

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In the future I'm happy to answer more items of medical interest personally if you'd allow me this privilege by going to the following website and sending your questions:

bit.ly/drdariushsaghafi

This query required 74 minutes of physician specific review, research, and final draft documentation for envoy.

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