sciatica pain relief from natural therapies

8/19/2019 Sciatica Pain Relief From Natural Therapies

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Natural Therapies for Sciatic Nerve Pain Relief

Contents:

Overview

What Can Cause Sciatica?

The Stretches That Helped Me

Trigger Point Therapy

Beneficial Yoga Poses

Ayurvedic Treatment

Acupressure

Diet Therapy

Summary

References

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Overview

Sciatica refers to an inflammation of the sciatic nerve. Irritationcan run down the entire leg to the foot and may beexcruciatingly painful. It is often caused by compression or inflammation of the sciatic nerve root. Sciatica may be triggeredby something as simple and easily correctable as sitting on a

thick wallet or a more serious condition such as a tumor or bulging disc from the spinal column pressing on the sciaticnerve. As such, it is a condition that should always be firstevaluated and diagnosed by a licensed medical professional,and any home treatments should only be attempted under doctor supervision.

What Can Cause Sciatica?

Anything that puts pressure or tension on the sciatic nerve maycause sciatica. Possible causes from my family's experienceand those listed in my collection of alternative health booksinclude:

Weight lifting, strenuous yoga poses or any other typeof exercise that may tighten the muscles of the buttocks,back and hip may be a trigger. I actually developedsciatica from physical therapy for repetitive stress injuriesin my upper body. The problem was that therapy only

focused on my upper body, which instead of balancing mymuscles just transferred the tension points from my upper body to my lower body. So my RSI went away, and Ideveloped sciatica instead. Yoga to lengthen, balance andtone the muscles in both my upper and lower body was mylong term solution.

I've noticed that people with scoliosis and a lowshoulder may develop sciatica on the same side of thebody as the low shoulder. I think tight muscles in the hip

area may pull the shoulder down as well as put pressureon the sciatic nerve.


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Supine knees to chest - lay on the floor with your legs

slightly bent. Grasp the knee of the leg with the sciatic painwith both hands. Slowly and gently pull it towards your chest. Stop if you feel any pain. It should feel like a gentle,good stretch. Be careful not to pull too hard or your muscles may go into spasm, which would then make thepain worse instead of better. You can do also do this thispose with one or both legs being pulled towards your chest, but I would put the emphasis on pulling the leg withthe sciatic pain the most. If this pose produces anydiscomfort, then you may want to try trigger point massage

therapy instead of stretching, and try the stretch again at alater time when you are out of acute sciatic pain.

Crisscross Knees

Crisscross Knee Stretch - Lay on the floor with your arms at your sides and your legs bent. First cross your leftleg over your right leg and then push both legs gently backto the left. Then repeat on the opposite side. I do both side

but hold the stretch a little longer when the leg with thesciatic pain is the bottom leg of the crisscross. Don't pull


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too hard or your muscles may go into spasm, making thepain worse. You should just feel a nice, gentle stretch. Asnoted above, don't do any poses that cause greater discomfort. If any type of stretches hurt, then it may bebetter to hold off andtry the trigger point therapy until thepain subsides.

Trigger point Therapy

For my family members and me acupressure is the maintreatment that helps acute episodes of sciatic nerve pain. Yoga,stretching and diet changes may all help to prevent further episodes from happening, but for acute pain the main treatmentthat helps us has always been trigger point therapy,

What we have found most helpful is to apply pressure to thetrigger point right in the middle of the buttocks, either using amassage tool or simply rolling on a tennis ball. One of my website readers found immediate relief from years of sciatic pain byapplying pressure to trigger points by rolling on the floor usinghard, rubber dog toys!

If you have someone else to help you with trigger point therapy,you can lay on your stomach and have them use a massagetool with a rounded end, to press the trigger points around your hips and gluteus maximus.

If you don't have a helper for trigger point massage, and want totry something other than rolling on the tennis ball, you can try aproduct called a theracane. It has a long curved end which helpsto reach places like your backside, which otherwise might behard to massage on your own.


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Yoga Postures

I have a large collection of therapeutic yoga books and many

have sections with poses to do for sciatica. One interesting pointto note is that the poses in general are all different from book tobook. Many appear to me to be selected at random, and someactually are poses that would tighten the muscles in the legsand buttocks and most likely would make sciatic nerve painworse.

However, when I last had sciatica, I found the book Back Care

Basics by Mary Pullig Schatz, M.D. 1 helpful. It has an entirechapter on sacroiliac Pain and sciatica. Besides the Knee toChest pose, which is covered above under stratches, other postures that helped include:

Passive Back ArchSupine Cobbler's PosePiriformis StretchCrocodile Twist (lying twist)Supine Knee to Chest (variation 1)One Leg Up, One Leg out - lay near a doorway and have

one leg stretched up the wall and one leg straight out onthe floor in front of you. I had to work up to this posture. Istarted out with my leg up the wall at a 45 degree angleand then as my leg loosened up over time worked up toninety degrees.

In general, for me the best poses were ones where I was layingflat on my back and stretching my legs in various positions.Many other yoga books recommend standing postures, but inmy case the standing postures tended to tighten my leg muscles

and made my pain worse.

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Dr. Vasant Lad, writing in Ayurveda: The Science of Self

Healing 2, recommends the following poses for sciatica:

Knee to chestBackward BendPloughYoga Mudra

Half Wheel

I have did not have any more problems with sciatica prior topurchasing Dr. Lad's book, so I could not personally test out theabove poses. However, much of the other advice in his

Ayurvedic book has been very helpful for my family and me, so Ithought I'd include his recommended poses in this article asothers may find them of use.

I do think that sciatica may require very individualized treatment

depending on the individual and the cause of the pain, so it maypay to try just one pose from the above lists at a time and recordthe results, keeping the poses that seem to help in your dailypractice and holding off on ones that cause further pain. If apose causes pain, it is often because it pulls where you are thetightest and least flexible, so ironically it may be the pose youneed to do the most over the long term.

However, initially either holding off altogether or practicing amodified, more gentle variation of any pose that causes you

problems may be in order at first. In my opinion, yoga or anyother treatment for sciatica should never hurt, and any posesyou cannot do comfortably you should refrain from practicing for the time being. For times when any poses were painful to do,then trigger point therapy treatments listed below usually workedbest.

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Ayurvedic Treatment

According to Dr. Vasant Lad, sciatica is a common complaint for

people with a vata dosha. In Ayurveda, the Science of Healing ,Dr. Lad states that, "Vata people are very susceptible to gas,

lower back pain, arthritis, sciatica, paralysis and neuralgia." 3

Vata people tend to have thin frames, low body weight and cold,dry skin.

For more information on Dr. Lad's Ayurvedic treatment of sciaticnerve pain, you can more about it here.

Acupressure

In the book Acupuncture without Needles by J. V. Cerney 4, theauthor recommends treating sciatica by applying pressure to thefollowing "A" priority points in the following order: B 47, B 48, B51 B 54 and B 60. The author's next priority, his "B" list, consistof GV 2 followed by GV 3.

For sciatic pain on the side of the leg, Chris Janey and John

Tindale, writing in Acupressure for Commons Ailments 5,

recommend treating points GB 30 and GB 31. The authors feelthat dispersing points GB 34 and GB 39 may also help.

For pain on the back of the leg, Janey and Tindale recommendtreating points B 57 and B 60. Recommended secondary pointsfor side leg pain are B54, B 26, and B23. Note: The author'shave a caution that B 60 should not be used during pregnancy.

Michael Reed Gach, author of The Bum Back Book 6,

recommends treating points GB 30, GB 34, GB 40, and GB 41,in the order listed, for sciatic pain relief.

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You can find an online chart with acupuncture points atwww.acupuncture.com.

Diet Therapy

Sciatica is often caused by tight muscles, and tight muscles maybe caused by a lack of magnesium. Calcium is the main mineralinvolved in muscle contraction, while magnesium is the mainmineral that releases muscle contractions. Without magnesiummuscles may stay permanently in a tight, contracted state.Studies show that many people on Western diets with highamounts of processed food may not be getting the RDA of magnesium, so it may be a good idea to watch your diet tomake sure you are getting enough of this important mineral tokeep your muscles relaxed.

When one of my relatives starts to feel a twinge of sciaticacoming on, he eats a lot of peanuts, a magnesium rich food, andusually this will stop his pain almost immediately. (Obviously thisis not a viable solution for people with peanut allergies.) Other

foods high in magnesium include nuts (almonds, cashews,pistachios, walnuts, etc.), beans, bananas, and leafy greenvegetables. Factors that deplete magnesium levels include adiet high in phytates (found in whole grains and unleavenedbread), coffee and other caffeinated substances, and excesscalcium intake. For more information see my page on how to getmore increase your magnesium levels with whole foods.

For what to eat to relieve chronically tight muscles, see mysection on the best diet for fibromyalgia.

Summary

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Sciatica can be a debilitating condition that should always bediagnosed by a licensed health care provider, as it may haveserious causes, such as a herniated disc. Alternative treatmentsfor sciatic pain that may be helpful include practicing appropriateyoga postures, acupressure, trigger point therapy, Ayuvedicmedicine and diet improvement.

Related Pages -

Natural therapies for:

Swollen Ankles

Knee Pain

Scoliosis

References:

1. Schatz, Mary Pullig. Back Care Basics. Berkeley, California:Rodmell Press, 1992.

2. Lad, Vasant. Ayurveda: The Science of Self Healing. TwinLakes, Wisconsin: Lotus Press, 1984. 115.

3. Ibid., at 38.

4. Cerney, J. V. Acupuncture Without Needles. West Nyack,New York: Parker Company, 1983. 198-201.

5. Janey, Chris, and John Tindale. Acupressure for Common Ailments. New York: Fireside, 1991. 83.

6. Gach, Michael Reed. The Bum Back Book . Berkeley:Celestialarts, 1983. 58-60.

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