Sciatica pain is often easy to identify, thanks to its signature symptom — pain that radiates from your lower back down the outside one of your legs into your foot. Unfortunately, many men and women struggle to get their symptoms under control, and worse, have attacks that come and go for weeks or months at a time. If that sounds familiar, we can help.
Our team at Daly Integrated Medical Group in Titusville, Florida offers innovative and customized treatment strategies designed to relieve your sciatica symptoms. The first step to finding effective treatment involves identifying the specific cause of your pain. Once we do that, we can develop a personalized plan to get your symptoms under control. Here’s how.
What’s to blame for your sciatica pain
Even though many people lump sciatica in with general back pain, it actually develops because of irritation or inflammation along the sciatic nerve.
Your sciatic nerve is approximately the width of your little finger. https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/sciatica-of-all-the-nerve The longest nerve in your body, it starts at the base of your lower back and runs all the way down your leg into your foot; there’s one on either side of your body. Once inflammation develops, you can experience uncomfortable symptoms that follow the entire length of the nerve.
Several things can trigger sciatic nerve inflammation, including:
Herniated disc
Spinal arthritis
Disc degeneration
Spinal stenosis
Bone spurs
Tumor
Your chances of experiencing sciatica are also higher if you’re overweight or obese, are pregnant, smoke, or spend long periods of time sitting.
Why a sciatica diagnosis matters
Our goal is to identify the cause of your sciatica so we can treat it, not just mask your symptoms. To do this, we perform a comprehensive physical exam and often recommend digital imaging, like X-rays or MRIs to look for irregularities. We also discuss your symptoms to confirm they’re signs of sciatica.
Common symptoms of sciatica include:
Weakness in your affected leg
Difficulty standing
Stabbing, burning, or jolting pain
Pain that worsens with sitting
Muscle spasms, especially in the lower back
A persistent ache in your legs and hips
Poor sleep quality
The good news is that with an accurate diagnosis, we can create a personalized treatment strategy so you can get relief for your sciatica symptoms once and for all.
Taking the right steps to treat sciatica
Finding the most effective treatment depends on the cause and severity of your symptoms. Sometimes, you can completely eliminate your discomfort just by the right lifestyle changes — like losing weight, eating a healthy diet, and stretching regularly.
When your sciatica symptoms need more than lifestyle changes, we might recommend more comprehensive solutions, such as:
Hot and cold therapy
Chinese herb therapy, IV therapy, and medications
Chiropractic care and spinal adjustments
Spinal decompression
Physical therapy
Nerve blocks and steroid shots
We also offer regenerative medicine techniques, like platelet-rich plasma therapy (PRP), designed to trigger healing in the area of your body causing your pain and inflammation.
You don’t have to suffer from your sciatica pain any longer. Learn more about your treatment options by calling us at 321-267-4324.
