Sciatica Treatment

There are several common-sense things you can do to try to avoid sciatica in the first place; but, if you do have sciatica then there are some common-sense things you can do to ease your pain and discomfort, and to treat your sciatica — yes, sciatica self-treatment can help a great deal. On this page we look at sciatica treatment.

You can often get sciatica relief by self-medication, and physical therapy (eg the correct forms of sciatica exercise); treatment for sciatica rarely includes surgery. Many people report a dramatic improvement to their pain by following a simple set of gentle exercises and changes to posture as described here.

Ideally, you should first check with a healthcare professional to make sure that you really do have sciatica and not something else.

Sciatica Treatment with Medication

Over-the-counter painkillers (eg paracetamol, aspirin) or anti-inflammatory drugs (eg ibuprofen) are often enough to provide relief from the symptoms of sciatica.

If your sciatica is persistently severe, your healthcare professional may prescribe a stronger medicine for sciatica relief: perhaps a stronger anti-inflammatory drug, a muscle relaxant, and and anti-depressant; or perhaps some combination of these.

Another option from your doctor is a steroid injection into your spine to reduce inflammation – if inflammation is the problem. If this works, it can ease the pain for several months.

Sciatica Treatment with Exercise

There are some natural ways to treat sciatica, and correct exercise is an easy, natural one. You should normally remain as mobile as possible, and continue to walk places; you could also try no-impact light exercise (eg gentle swimming) and perhaps careful stretching and yoga.

You only need to rest if the pain is acute and severe, and then only for short periods (certainly less than 24 hours) – inactivity can actually make the sciatic pain worse.

Many people report a dramatic improvement to their pain by following a simple set of gentle exercises and changes to posture as described here.

Your doctor or physiotherapist will be able to suggest some suitable exercises to reduce the sciatic pain and increase the strength in the muscles around your spine. Make sure you follow the regime correctly; usually you will have to do something once or twice every day.

Sciatica Treatment with Surgery

If your healthcare professional's diagnosis of your condition is that you have sciatica, they may then, if your condition is severe enough, decide that for your sciatica surgery is appropriate.

Traditional surgical procedures are always elective (ie it's up to you whether to try them); the common procedures are:

• Discectomy: All or part of the problem disc is removed.
• Laminectomy/Laminotomy: All or part of the lamina (part of the bony vertebra) is removed to relieve pressure on the sciatic nerve.

An operation for sciatica does not necessarily mean being cut open; there are some minimally-invasive procedures becoming available, such as:

• Intradiscal Electrothermoplasty: A heated wire is inserted into the problem disc through a needle and used to destroy the tiny nerve fibres causing the sciatica.
• Radiofrequency Discal Nucleoplasty: A radio frequency probe is inserted into the problem disc through a needle and highly-focused radio frequency field is used to vapourise some of the disc, reducing its size and thereby decompressing the disc to reduce the pressure on the sciatic nerve.

No matter what type of surgery you have (and we repeat: you often do not need any kind of surgery to treat sciatica), you must follow the doctor's instructions as to what levels of activity are advised in the days and weeks following treatment. Recovery from sciatica surgery depends on the nature of the treatment; your doctor can provide the best advice on that.

Whole-Body Sciatica Treatment

Instead of one of the specific approaches listed above, you can go for the whole-body therapy that many people have reported as being successful.

Alternative Ways of Treating Sciatica

You may wish to consider some alternative therapies such as:

• Heat pack
• Ice pack
• Ultrasound
• Acupuncture/Acupressure
• Chiropractic
• Massage

During your recovery there are things to do and watch out for; have a look at our Recovery page.