Sciatic nerve issues

[Muddyboots]

I had sciatica really bad. Been there and had spinal stenosis plus spinal arthritis for many years. Had L2-L5 fusion year ago this month. Best thing I ever did. Wish I had my surgeon years ago.

Piriformis stretches work, there about 7-8 different ones dependent upon your specific condition. They WORK. I did them several times a day even at work.

Inversion tables can work. DO NOT GO 180° upside down. The ads you see are BS. Full inversion is DANGEROUS. A slow gradual stretch is what is needed for proper piriformis stretches. Time on table is shorter than most people understand. Teeter makes one of the bests.

Highly recommend seeing a neurosurgeon to precisely identify the physical problem. Heck you could have one leg shorter than other.

 

[Rick Richard]

aren't we a messed up bunch

That is because most of us are…..OLD. lol.

 

[1PD hunter]

I'm a massage therapist with 14 years experience and the majority of sciatic nerve issues are simply piriformis syndrome and can be treated by a good massage therapist with the strength and experience to do it. Google piriformis syndrome. It's easily treated.

I've literally treated what must be way over a hundred people with this type of issue and only about 5 of them ended up with the issue being in the lumbar spine area and only two of those required surgery. Get an MRI by a reputable orthopedic spine surgeon that isn't "cut happy" if the massage doesn't work.

Also a very good physical therapist that uses the McKenzie Method can likely help and often diagnose the problem quite well.

Can you help me with a method to find just such a massage therapist in the
Shawnee Mission , Kansas general area. I need help with my back and have heard that a good massage therapist may be the answer rather than surgery. Thanks for your help.

 

[baldhunter]

A lot of people never had a good massage. A massage can work wonders for a lot of your nagging aches and pains. It's a natural healing medicine. My wife is an excellent massage therapist. I get a deep tissue massage from her, I feel and I'm able to move like a much younger guy. At 68yrs of age,she keeps me feeling young.

 

[canguy]

Has anyone found a non surgical way to treat the pain? I've had it off and on over the years but it's getting really bad. Stretching, heating pad and ibuprofen usually helps but not this time.

I too had lower back pain. At times it laid me up for days. I finally found relief when I went to Tyler Texas and had fibrogen injections in the disks.
I highly recommend them.
Google Dr. KEVIN PAUZA of the Texas Spine Center.

 

[LDHunter]

Although I have 4 bulging discs in my lumbar region I have very little back pain at age 74. The orthopedic surgeon told me after my MRI that I could most likely survive for the rest of my life with little or no back pain and no surgery or drugs if I continue to work out and keep my weight down. Belly fat is absolutely NOT allowed if us older men (and women) are to have happy lower backs.

I hit the gym 2-3 days a week and am on my feet performing massage and helping real estate clients 5-6 days a week except during our 3 month deer season when I just work out a couple of days a week and only work 3-4 days a week. We hunt deer with hounds here so I'm on my feet and moving a good bit.

Another thing I've found is that you need to keep inflammatory foods and alcohol out of your diet if you have back pain and that hydration is critical.

You can take care of your own back through holistic means or you can let doctors do it for you the painful way with surgery and liver damaging drugs. It's your own decision. The holistic way can be a lot of work but the rewards are immeasurable.

 

[LDHunter]

Can you help me with a method to find just such a massage therapist in the
Shawnee Mission , Kansas general area. I need help with my back and have heard that a good massage therapist may be the answer rather than surgery. Thanks for your help.

It appears that you're fairly close to Kansas City and that increases the chance for you to find a qualified therapist.

You will probably find someone qualified if you find a therapist that advertises structural integration or Rolfing. These are advanced modalities. Also you will usually not find qualified therapists that work at spas. If they have their own practice it's a big plus. That usually means that they have been at it for several years and will have more experience and usually not mostly Swedish massage which is keyed toward relaxation than specific treatments.

Forget falling for the "deep tissue" advertisements. That is something that any therapist can claim to do and just because they go deep doesn't mean they know what they're doing.

Women rarely have the strength to do truly therapeutic massage for several years or several sessions a day. Plus women's hands typically aren't as strong and wear out way faster than men's hands.

I've only found 3 women that had the hands that were strong enough and durable enough to withstand the years of deep therapeutic body work that it requires to do the kind of work you need and they all were quite large women of eastern European descent and even then they don't often do the kind of work you need.

Here is one idea.... Rolfing is essentially the same thing as structural integration and you can follow this link and then select "find a rolfer near you". It appears that there are a few in your general area.
https://rolf.org/
You might tell them of your specific issues up front and that you can't afford the time or money for the full 10 session program and see if they're willing to help you. People that have the blessing of the Rolf Institute at least have the full certification and training of the Rolf Institute and you can bet they're advanced practitioners.

The course I took was 10 months long with well over 10 hours a week of hands on training. Some people claim to do Rolfing or Structural Integration that took a weekend continuing education course. That may be helpful but you can see the difference in time spent and the resulting skills level.

I hope this helps you. It can be a daunting task finding a qualified therapist for what you need.

 

[GSRetrievers]

Not to scare anyone but I know two people who tried massage therapy, no dice, then chiropractor, again no relief. They finally went to the Dr for a MRI, both are dead now from cancer, one bone cancer (23 years old), the other kidney cancer that metastasized to his spine, liver and brain very rapidly. Don't put off a MRI.

 

[Old Rooster]

Like everyone else is saying, pain is a symptom that something bad is wrong,get an MRI. I've had 8 back surgeries, 7 posterior and 1 anterior, I still have problems but I get around well enough to get out and fish some hunt some,reload and shoot some. I will never be like I used to be but I don't complain as my God has blessed me with enough health to get around and hug my grand children. I used to play football,thats gone!
Don't be afraid of getting second opinons!

 

[HandgunHTR]

An MRI taken with newer state of the art machine, and results read by a very good surgeon.

If there is truly an issue requiring surgery……everything else is a waste of time, money, and a risk of your future health.

I did all of the chiropractic, ibuprofen, acupuncture steps. Then went to a "supposedly" good Dr. with less than great MRI imaging. Worse after surgery, trimmed a bulging disc.

Suffered for 2 years until I had built-up my sick leave to a point to risk another surgery.

This time, better MRI, a very highly regarded DR! He saw that I had a vertebrae misalignment….the only fix……a spinal fusion!

Best thing in my life….felt great after surgery with minimal pain, and a quick recovery. 9 months later, I was dragging a moose about 1/3 of a mile, down a steep grade, to the 2 track and my vehicle at the bottom.

That was 2012….life was great until I did something really stupid about 2 years ago and re-injured it!

If it can't be fixed with non-surgical methods, don't wait too long…..once the nerve is damaged, it's likely permanent damage! JMO. memtb

My experience is very similar to this, although both of my surgeons were very good, but the timing of my issues (first surgery in 2004 second in 2010) meant that the technology wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today.

The one thing that I do believe gave me a better outcome than most when it comes to fusion is that I chose to do what was at the time was still a relatively unproven method of anterior fusion, rather than posterior. For the anterior, they go in through the front. They don't have to cut any muscle as the incision is right in between the abdominal muscles. The other benefit is that the discs are on the front side of your spinal column, so they are not having to work around it when cleaning up the old discs. Finally, rather than a rod and screw arrangement what is used is essentially a replacement disc made of hard plastic with titanium plates. It is hollow in the middle and in that hollow spot they put a chunk of bone and then the screw the "disc" to the vertebrae. Your vertebrae will grow and fuse to that new piece of bone and that completes the fusion.
I had L4-L5 and L5-S1 fused. I went into surgery at 8:30am. I was out at sometime around 11:30. They had me on my feet and walking the hall by 7pm that night. I was home in 3 days, back to work in 2 weeks (although I did have to wear a brace for 3 months) and it has been almost 15 years now since I had the surgery and I am still pain free. I do have to be careful because if I put too much pressure on that disc at L3-L4, it will get damaged as well as it is not designed to take that kind of stress (L5-S1 is the "heavy lifter" of the bunch). But as long as I keep my weight in check, make sure I lift correctly, and don't try to "over lift", I am confident that I won't have any other issues.

I also know that since I had my surgery, they have developed replacement discs for the cervical and lumbar spine. While I don't know of anyone who has had the lumbar discs replaced, there are a couple of famous athletes who have had disc replacements in their necks and continued to play professional hockey/football.

Just for reference, here is a post-surgery x-ray of my lower back.

 

[Sinko]

Physical therapist done me more good than a chiropractor, now a chiropractor certainly does help as well.

If the pain persist get a MRI. My wife "powered through" for 14 years and ended up doing permanent nerve damage and now at 48 she walks with a cane on good days and a walker the rest of the time.

 

[Rosebud]

Be very careful with inversion or manipulation. I fully believe in chiropractors. One kept me going for a long time. And inversion does work. It helped my dad. And helped me some before things really went south. It helps the discs decompress and vertebra realign. I would also get some relief from hot showers, hot or cold whirlpool, ice, heat, and a Tens unit. Massage also works short term but it did not help long term. None of this fixed the root cause unfortunately. 4 months after a discectomy at L4-5, I was doing worse instead of better. My doctor sent me in for more therapy. The therapist tried light traction on my back 3-4 months after the operation as I was still having bad problems, Traction accomplishes about the same thing as inversion or the Teetor Totter. I trusted that they new what they were doing. While in traction I felt fine. When they let the pressure off, I felt like I had been shot. I could not move or breathe deeply for the pain. I ended up in the hospital for 4 days. I'm not saying traction or the Teetor Totter doesn't work. It does and can be very effective. It helped me when I was in my 20s when my back would go out or I'd have have subluxation of the spine.

Just be careful. Turned out in my situation I had way more going on down there than the bulged and extruded disc. The doctor dropped the ball big time. Then later when I couldn't even walk to the mailbox 5 months after surgery he dismissed me as a Narcotics seeker and told me there was nothing he could do for me. Turns out that was good luck. I found a much better doctor. I had bone spurs, arthritis, another ruptured disc, stenosis, degenerative disc disease, and facet joint wear also. Plus my disc damage meant that it wasn't providing enough height and cushion anymore. So doctor number 1 removing the piece of disk that was floating in my spinal canal and trimming the disk was necessary, but did not fix the issue. There was no way that it could haves. The bones were not stable and they were rubbing together. It took a fusion of L4-5 and L5-S1 and 2 titanium discs to fix it. I did great after that. Then I fell out of a treestand and broke my back. 2 Burst fractures 2 compression fractures. All with major disc damage. 11 of my vertebrae are fused now with hardware. But that is a whole nuther adventure.
Sorry for the long story. I have a little experience with back issues and learned a lot going through the process.

Crap you are making me think I'm a complainer from what is wrong with me.. Though its extensive, it's nothing compared to you. Really hope you can have some relief and a near normal life.
I set in a pain management office and chiropractor office and look at the other people there and thank god for what I have. Things (CAN) get worse.

 

[epags]

.......Highly recommend seeing a neurosurgeon to precisely identify the physical problem. Heck you could have one leg shorter than other.

Or, in my case, for the past year I was experiencing mild pain on my right side when walking (2 to 2-1/2 miles a day). My primary care physician keep having me do difference exercises insisting it was just old age and arthritis. It got so bad a month ago that I talked him into an X-ray of my right hip

The initial finding was that I likely had a bone-on-bone right hip joint that was causing sciatica-like pain and in turn caused me to walk in a manner that caused my spine to be out of alignment further aggravating my sciatic nerve. He scheduled me to see an orthopedic surgeon.

Yesterday I saw the orthopedic surgeon who had replaced my left hip 13 years ago with a Titanium hip replacement. At that time it required several days in a hospital and a fairly long recovery process since they had to cut muscles that have to re-knit and then weeks of physical therapy to restore the loss muscle strength.

My surgeon had 4 more X-rays taken and agreed it was a bone-on-bone hip that was the cause of all my pains. He told me that today there is a new procedure called a Direct Anterior hip replacement. No muscles are cut so it can be an out patient operation or at the most an overnight (in the hospital) procedure. I have been scheduled for the operation on Sep 3rd.

I had talked to two old f...ts like me who have had that specific operation and they say it is a 'walk-in-the-park' and other than the inital pain of the operation they were walking at home, with care, the next day.

One guy, only 7 days after his operation, drove his car to our shooting range to shoot bench rest. We changed his targets, at that time, to prevent him from walking over uneven dirt to the stands, Now, a month later he is even changing his targets himself. DIscalimer: He did say that his doctor had said not to do that but he needed to be ready to go to Finland this summer to compete in an international air rifle competition.

 

[waspocrew]

Not to scare anyone but I know two people who tried massage therapy, no dice, then chiropractor, again no relief. They finally went to the Dr for a MRI, both are dead now from cancer, one bone cancer (23 years old), the other kidney cancer that metastasized to his spine, liver and brain very rapidly. Don't put off a MRI.

While usually not the cause of back pain, this definitely happens.

Had a patient recently that was experiencing severe back pain. He had an MRI that showed lytic lesions to his spine, brain, lungs, liver, etc. Biopsy of the liver showed metastatic melanoma. We biopsied multiple moles on his skin, but never found the primary melanoma (at least on the skin).

Don't put off imaging. You can make a decision afterwards on how you want to proceed.