Electrifying sharp pain that precipitates from your lower back to your leg describes sciatica. This radiating pain can occur as a severe effect, or range from mild to sharp pain. Numbness and tingling accompany the pain, MedlinePlus indicates. A person experiencing this type of discomfort usually finds it difficult to walk any distance. This type pain may increase with sitting for a long period, or a deep or harsh cough can make it worse.
Step 1
Get physical therapy to help treat your sciatica pain. Treating the source of the pain, if it is caused by a malady such as a herniated disc of the spinal column, will provide comfort as the site of the problem heals, MayoClinic.com indicates. The therapy will help with your posture and will strengthen the muscles in your back, restoring muscular support where it is needed. Improving movement within your body, including the back, will decrease pain associated with sciatica.
Step 2
Use hot and cold compresses to help reduce the pain of sciatica. The physical therapist also will provide hot and cold compress relief before and after therapy, MayoClinic.com states. Relaxing the muscles of the back as well as providing analgesic topical cold relief to the site of pain will help you limber up before exercise and help relax muscles following it.
Step 3
Take medications recommended by a physician. The doctor may prescribe medications such as antidepressants, as well as anticonvulsant drugs, to assist in decreasing this type of chronic pain. Blocking the pain sites in the brain will help restore function to the body for movement and tolerance of some discomfort, MayoClinic.com reports.
Step 4
Get injections of corticosteroids if your physician recommends them. These types of medications help reduce inflammation. In this case, with direct injections of the medications into the affected area, corticosteroids can help reduce the amount of inflammation that may occur near the nerve sites, MayoClinic.com reports.
Step 5
Seek a surgical solution. Sometimes physical therapy and other measure do not provide enough therapeutic effects to heal the sciatica, and surgical measures become necessary, MayoClinic.com indicates. During surgery, the surgeon removes a part of the herniated disk to stop the pressure on the nerve that has caused the pain.
Step 6
Rest. Rest can offer healing for many medical problems. In the case of sciatica, because it occurs in your back, the best type of rest will occur in bed.
Things You'll Need
- Pain medication
- Doctor’s evaluation
- Physical therapy
- Hot and cold compresses
- rest
