Your Santa Barbara Chiropractor knows that sciatica is an extremely painful condition. If you suffer from sciatic pain, you are, unfortunately, all too experienced with the deep pain that shadows your waking hours and interferes with your daily activities.
Sciatic pain commonly travels from your low back, through the buttock(s), and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of your leg(s). Frequently, the pain may even radiate into your knee. Motion and sitting, alike can be painful. On occasion lying down will decrease, or perhaps briefly eliminate, the pain. However, sciatica will not go away permanently without proper treatment.
“Radiculopathy,” the medical term for the clinical diagnosis of sciatica, means simply that a disc has bulged from its original position in the vertebral column and is causing pressure on the radicular nerve (nerve root) in the lower back, which forms part of the sciatic nerve. Such pressure is extraordinarily painful.
Added pressure on the intervertebral discs, as well as imbalances in the muscles encompassing the spine, can happen during and after extended sitting, especially in a improper position. Usually, a specific event or definite injury doesn’t create sciatica, but, on the contrary, it tends to develop over time as a by-product of general wear and tear on the structures of the lower spine. Over time the lower spine loses its ability to function normally during everyday stresses.
Finally, the intervertebral disc develops small fissures, or cracks, which then lets the soft nucleus extend the disc outward. If the disc presses on sensitive tissues, it generates the pain that is generally referred to as a slipped disc. If the disc presses on the spinal nerve, an individual can develop sciatica.
Most disc challenges, including sciatica, can be alleviated with chiropractic adjustments and therapies that usually includes postural exercises. If you are experiencing sciatic pain, it is important for you to seek chiropractic attention.
