Advice on Sciatica

I've had some success with h2o diluted food grade d-limonene applied topical. Lasts a couple hours.

Pain sucks!

This is a really helpful thread and a good place to start. Thread: If you have lower back herniated disc and you are tired of it and taking a truckload of drugs please read this

Deep tissue massage on the piriformus muscle (glutes) and low back by an experienced massage therapist or physical therapist cured mine. I do deep stretches everyday in those areas to keep the sciatic nerve from being aggravated.

I have the same shit.


I walk, I hang on my pull up bar with my toes touching barely and my pelvis completely disengaged.

I also lay in a foam roller just above where the curve of my back begins and let it disengage my back

I also lay on my stomach with my feet against the wall and then put my hands right under my shoulders then press up as a kind of reverse situp.

Pigeon Pose, Hatha Yoga.

Take yoga 3-4x's a week

Get on elliptical 30 minutes a day. Gets all muscles joints moving.

And, keep body fat below 30%... 25% or less helps

Avoid all take out and driv thru food. Start cooking.

Walk 5 miles a day
It will go away after a few weeks

Cut out all carbs.

Eat animal foods only. Carnivore diet. High quality grass fed meats and animal foods only. Raw if you can, you'll heal faster. Worked for me. Chug down 15 to 20 raw eggs a day too. Spread out throughout the day. Eat lots of grass fed raw cheese too. And raw milk if you can find it.

Healed in less than a week. It's the essential fat soluble vitamins that are only found in animal foods that make the body heal itself. I didn't believe it until I did it.

I have sciatica that flares up every year or two. It's debilitating, the only comfortable position is standing. I tried every type of pain killer and nothing even touched it. There were times I had to sleep with my top half hanging in a yoga swing.

Out of desperation, I finally tried kratom. IT WORKED IN 20 MINUTES!! The first relief I had in 2 months!

If it is legal where you are, you can find it at smoke shops to try it out. If it works, you can get better quality online. There is really no high, even if you take a lot it's like a low valium dose. I never had an issue with it being addicting, the longest I've had to take it daily was maybe 3 weeks straight. Before kratom the episode would last months. Now it is typically 2 weeks. Maybe it's the ability to rest well that helps too.

Capsules are easiest, but powder works faster. The best way to do powder is what you call toss n wash. You dump the 1 teaspoon into your mouth, hold while filling your mouth with some water, swish and swallow. Tastes like crap haha, but is over pretty quick. If you want to mix it in something, orange juice works great! I can't do that much acidity so it's water for me. If I don't need quick relief, I just do the capsules. Difference of about 20 minutes.

Red light therapy.

Inversion table will tide you over for a few years until it gets worse. They do work. I have a bulging disc at L4 L5. 10 minutes on the table in the morning and 10 before bed. You don't have to go full tilt.

This is not medical advice, this is what I did to overcome such pain.

I started with some simple exercises.

When I strengthen my core body muscles it took stress off the other parts of my back and spine.

Two very simple exercises even the most inactive person can master:

1) Standing knee lifts. I did these like they were a reverse crunch for your abdomen. I would lift one knee, and I made sure I could feel it in my lower abs. I then would do the other knee the same way. Three Sets of 15-20 per leg helped strengthen my abdomen and take stress off my back and spine.

2) Then I did standing backward leg kicks. This is to strengthen the lower back muscles. You stand up with an arm on the edge of a doorway. I would keep my upper body straight, and extend my leg backwards so I would feel it working my lower back. I would alternate legs and do three sets of 15-20 reps.

Within the first week of doing these things my core muscles began to strengthen and take all that pressure and strain off muscles and spine which isn't supposed to bear the brunt of that weight.

Larry Bird says lay on your stomache!

Piriformis Syndrome: Exercises

[link to myhealth.alberta.ca (secure)]

All I got.

IT will come and go for years, is my first point. It will likely be on one side, but flare up over and over again.

I agree, try and use gravity to reset it if you can, hang from a chin up bar, or a kid's playground bar or something to let gravity pull your vertebrae apart.

Try to change positions as little as possible, that is the thing with sciatica, getting up and down, and rolling over in bed is a bear. Find a comfortable position and stay there.

Anti inflammatories like Motrin can help.

Get used to your butt and outer thigh being numb-ish.

Heat helps some.

I had it when I fell on my back while playing netball. I had about 6 week of Physio and they gave me some light exercises to do at home. As I recall I also had a couple of treatments with a heat lamp too.

It has never reoccured so it did the trick.

I forgot to add this - apparently Pilates can help also but make sure you let them know about the Sciatica so they can tailor the exercises to help you.

Agree! Here's a good video of pigeon 'how to', with great instruction on beginner or advanced: