Sciatic Nerve – What It Is and What Causes the Pain?

sciatic nerveThe sciatic nerve is the largest and longest nerve in your body, branching out from your spine in your lower back through your hips and buttocks and down each leg, all the way to your ankles and feet. You probably don’t give much thought to your sciatic nerve, unless it’s causing you pain.

Pain that radiates from your lower back all the way down the back of your leg (typically on only one side) is the key symptom of sciatic nerve pain, or sciatica.

While sciatica is often treated as a condition, it’s more accurately a symptom that results from an underlying disorder, such as a herniated disc, which occurs when your discs – the “shock absorbers” of your spine – become damaged, bulge or break open. This means the jelly-like center of your spinal disc can be pushed out of place, and may end up pushing on a nerve (sort of like what would happen if you squeezed a jelly donut). If it compresses part of your sciatic nerve, you’ll often feel “sciatica” — severe sharp, shooting pain that travels down the back of your leg, numbness and tingling in your legs, burning pack pain and even leg weakness.

Bone spurs, a pinched nerve, spinal stenosis and even pregnancy can also lead to compression of the sciatic nerve and sciatica symptoms.

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What Should You do if You Have Sciatic Nerve Pain?

First, realize what’s causing it. Anything that causes increased stress on your spine can increase your risk, and this includes not only obesity and diabetes (which increases your risk of nerve damage) but also mechanical issues such as:

  • Prolonged sitting
  • Twisting your back
  • Carrying heavy loads
  • Driving a vehicle for long periods of time

In many cases sciatica pain will resolve on its own without treatment, but it can potentially lead to permanent nerve damage and will often reoccur if you don’t make lasting changes to your body mechanics …

sciatic nerveThe fact is that common daily activities like slouching in front of a computer or lifting a child, along with inactivity such as slacking on your exercise routine, can pull your spine out of alignment into what we call physical dysfunctions. These develop over time and are the direct result of imbalances between various muscle groups, i.e. “muscle imbalances.” Your body is then forced to work each day with this dysfunction and eventually this creates a condition, like a herniated disc with related sciatica nerve pain, for example.

The solution starts at the foundational level with your original muscle imbalances — not with drugs or steroid injections that only mask the symptoms …

With the Lose the Back Pain system, you’ll first identify the causes of your dysfunctions and imbalances, then implement proven strategies to help reduce and manage your pain so you can focus on correcting the dysfunction(s) that are responsible. Finally, you will work on treating the CAUSE, which is the dysfunctions and the muscle imbalances that created it … and also implementing additional treatments and strategies that are specific to the condition you may have been diagnosed with.

If you’re tired of sciatic nerve pain flaring up and making your life miserable, follow this simple three-step formula to get the permanent, natural pain relief you need, starting today.

Filed Under: General Health
Written By:  Updated:
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Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, MFT

Jesse is the co-founder and visionary CEO of The Healthy Back Institute®, the world-leading source of natural back pain solutions. His mission as a former back pain sufferer is to help others live pain free without surgery and pharmaceuticals.

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