The Volume Knob of Pain Thresholds: Why Your Pain Isn’t Just Physical
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Three Easy Tips to Resolve Sciatic Pain
Sciatic pain is one of the most uncomfortable complaints we see in the therapeutic pain management game. Having back pain is one thing, but having severe nerve pain down the back of your leg (the most common symptom of Sciatic pain) is a whole other level of pain altogether. The good news is there are solutions. Whilst sciatic pain is excruciating, in almost every case, it will resolve; it will just take time. Unless you are extraordinarily unlucky, getting stuck with sciatic pain long-term is virtually unheard of. Here are three tips for understanding and resolving your sciatic pain.
1 - Get A Correct Diagnosis
Sciatica or Sciatic pain means pain down the back of the leg. There are many possible causes of pain back down the leg, which means many possible causes of Sciatic pain. Sciatic pain or Sciatica is not a diagnosis; they are a symptom. To have the best possible chance of resolving your sciatic pain, you must find out precisely what is causing your sciatic pain. Knowing the exact problem tends to lead to valuable tools and solutions.
Sciatic pain is usually caused by inflammation/damage in the spinal tissues, tumours/masses in the spinal column, muscle spasms/space-occupying lesions in the pelvis, and neurological problems. With such a broad scope of possible causes, it is vital to find out which is causing your sciatic pain.
Happily, most Sciatic Pain cases are not sinister and relate more to stubborn mechanical issues in the lower back and pelvis. The other good news is that diagnosing most cases of Sciatica is simply a matter of performing some specific tests and often does not even need an x-ray or a scan. And yet, of course, there are other instances where a sciatic pain diagnosis does require scans and blood tests etc.
2 - Keep Moving
As we mentioned before, sciatic pain is excruciating, and that doesn’t exactly make you want to run around the place, far from it. However, the research on pain and rehabilitation supports a more active approach to recovery these days. The days of bedrest, whole body casts, and neck braces are long gone, just as they should be.
A big part of why active recovery is supported these days is because inactivity leads to muscle wasting. Furthermore, active movement elevates mood, which has also been shown to reduce pain signals. Naturally, if you have a very severe case of sciatic pain, you won’t be going for a run, much less lifting weights or anything like that, and this is just as it should be. The type of ‘active’ that the research supports is not the strength and performance type; it’s keep the body moving kind of activity.
Being active while you recover from Sciatic pain means getting up and moving around as much as possible. It means avoiding bed rest, and it means knowing that, for the most part, it is more damaging to life to be still than it is to keep moving.
2 - Keep Moving
As we mentioned before, sciatic pain is excruciating, and that doesn’t exactly make you want to run around the place, far from it. However, the research on pain and rehabilitation supports a more active approach to recovery these days. The days of bedrest, whole body casts, and neck braces are long gone, just as they should be.
A big part of why active recovery is supported these days is because inactivity leads to muscle wasting. Furthermore, active movement elevates mood, which has also been shown to reduce pain signals. Naturally, if you have a very severe case of sciatic pain, you won’t be going for a run, much less lifting weights or anything like that, and this is just as it should be. The type of ‘active’ that the research supports is not the strength and performance type; it’s keep the body moving kind of activity.
Being active while you recover from Sciatic pain means getting up and moving around as much as possible. It means avoiding bed rest, and it means knowing that, for the most part, it is more damaging to life to be still than it is to keep moving.
3 - Get Treatment
In just the same way that it is impossible to resolve your own toothache, it is seldom possible to resolve your own sciatic pain. It is one thing to have low-grade ITB pain and do daily foam rolling to manage it, which is valid. However, it’s another thing altogether to try and self-diagnose and treat something as serious as Sciatic pain. Self-care and self-stretching are essential parts of any recovery. However, they are not a substitute for actual hands-on treatment with professionals who have experience resolving Sciatic and back pain.
The first step towards finding treatment is finding someone you know has the requisite experience treating Sciatica and whom you feel you can trust. This could be a practitioner you have worked with in the past, someone working with your family, or someone you find whose website resonates with how you see things.
It is a little too much to hope that any single treatment like Acupuncture or Chiropractic will resolve the Sciatic pain. Because Sciatic pain is so severe and so stubborn, the best approach will likely be flexible when treating the pain. So preferably, if you know someone who will take a flexible approach, that is most likely to get the result you want.
Conclusion
The overarching and most crucial point regarding Sciatic pain is to keep the faith as millions of people have suffered from Sciatic pain and resolved it. Knowing this can be of great comfort when dealing with a significant amount of pain.
The people who have suffered and resolved from Sciatic pain tend to be the ones who have taken the time to look after themselves and sort the proper care and advice along the way. These are sound principles for dealing with life’s complex health issues, and sciatic pain is no different.
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