SCIATICA? Then ask this...

You have probably come across this famous “condition” SCIATICA.

It can be a very debilitating condition.

If you a professional ever diagnoses you with sciatica I would implore to ask them what is the cause.

You see, the definition of sciatica is:

Pain in the distribution of the sciatic nerve

This means that sciatica only tells you where the pain is, not the cause. For me that is not a complete diagnosis as you don’t yet know what the problem is.

Your sciatic nerve is the thickest nerve in your body (it’s as thick as your thumb!). It’s made up of a number of different branches of nerves that originate in your lumbar spine (low back). These converge, just how the exit on a motorway would converge into a spaghetti junction, out of which you have individual peripheral nerves, one of which is the sciatic nerve.

There are other peripheral nerves that also supply the the leg.

Just as you may meet traffic whilst driving, you experience the “pain” of the vehicle in front of you. However, that line of traffic could be due to a number of different reasons, such as roadworks, an accident or dysfunctional traffic lights.

Similarly sciatica can be due to a pinching of the nerve roots from the spine, from tight muscles in the buttock area, a disc bulge, etc… So it’s important to resolve the source of the problem to allow correct nerve flow, rather than making a vague and incomplete diagnosis of sciatica.