Sciatica Treatment & Chiropractic Care
Natural care to help manage or eliminate sciatica.
Updated August 2024 by Dr. Lloyd Fielder, D.C.
If you are reading this then chances are that you have been diagnosed with sciatica or are currently experiencing symptoms that are associated with sciatica. Either way, you are dealing with something that is affecting your lifestyle, comfort and causing concern. Let’s cover a few basic things and see if we can get you back on the right track so that you can feel better and understand what might be going on.
Sciatica is a common and often debilitating condition of the lower back that produces pain, numbness, tingling and even weakness. These symptoms might start in your back, buttock, hip or thigh and can extend all the way down to your foot. To be truly classified as sciatica, the pain must radiate or continue past the knee and is a very important diagnostic criteria from a clinician point of view. Many times, I have seen a patient and they have been told that they have sciatica when in fact, they did not. The pain is similar but if you are not assessed correctly then treatment often fails because you are not addressing the right thing.
What Causes Sciatica & Related Symptoms?
Many times, the cause of sciatica is a compression on the specific nerve roots coming out of your lumbar spine otherwise known as a “pinched nerve.” This pinched nerve or nerves is usually caused by a herniated disc from your lumbar spine. The cause of the herniated disc in your lumbar spine can be overuse, spinal misalignments, poor posture, trauma or degenerative joint disease that we usually call arthritis.
Sciatica can start with pain in your lower back or buttock and radiate into the thigh, calf or foot. Most people will complain of a dull achy pain similar to a toothache in their leg and others report a sharp pain like an electrical shock. This pain can travel in a continuous line or it can be in your back and just in your calf as well. This can be confusing to patients sometimes because you think it is just calf pain and do not realize it is sciatica.
Pain can be an absolutely debilitating symptom and some people have it worse in the morning while others have the greatest pain from sciatica at night even disturbing their sleep. Some people might be able to find a more comfortable position while others cannot seem to get relief no matter what position they try.
Numbness and tingling are another very common symptom in sciatica and the distribution of the sensation or lack of sensation is usually the same. It can be in your buttocks, hip, thigh, calf or foot. Many times, a person will feel numbness and tingling into the foot and toes, usually the big toe. The feeling is that your leg or foot is falling asleep. Sometimes, patients say that they think their cell phone is buzzing in their pocket only to realize it is their leg.
The last and not always the most obvious symptom is weakness of the foot or toes. The proper terminology is “drop foot.” The person who does not realize that they have drop foot might start to notice that they catch their foot on the carpeting or while they are walking. Usually, one might not even think twice about it until a chiropractor asks them about it. You can test this yourself by standing on the affect leg and attempting to stand on your tippy toes. One leg at a time, test the affect side and the non-affected side, is there a noticeable weakness? Is there any difference at all? If there is weakness or loss of muscle strength this is a sure sign of sciatica and a pinched nerve in your back.
Sciatica Treatment Success With Chiropractic Care
The great news is that our chiropractors here at Evolve Chiropractic have great success helping people every single day to find relief from sciatic pain and sciatica. Many patients describe euphoria at just starting to get relief from sciatica after suffering for a long period of time. Our goal is to get you out of pain and symptom-free as quick as possible so that you can return to the life you want and doing the things you enjoy whether it is playing golf, working out or rolling around on the floor with the kids.
The most important thing for you to understand is that treatment is easy but only if the proper assessment is done and the correct diagnosis is made. Once the underlying mechanism and cause is identified it makes treatment and correction of the spine and surrounding musculature much more efficient. This allows you to get better as quick as possible saving you both time and money.
It is for this reason that our initial examination is only $21 in all of our offices. This is so that a person like yourself can find out if you actually do have sciatica, why you might have it, what is the cause and what is the best solution for you as a unique individual. If you have any questions please send us an email anytime and thank you for reading!
New Patient Special Offer - $21
New Patient Special Offer - $21
- Consultation & Health History
- Thorough Exam
- Spinal X-rays (if needed)
- Report of Findings