Three tips for treating your sciatica pain

Three Tips for Treating Sciatica

Are you feeling a burning pain radiating from your lower back? Do you feel a shooting pain in your back when you stand up? If your answer to these questions is yes, there’s a good chance you need help treating a condition called sciatica. 

What is sciatica?

Sciatica is a back issue that’s centered on the sciatic nerves. These nerves are the longest in the body, and they run from the lower back, over the buttocks and down each leg. When these nerves become pinched, the condition is called sciatica, and there are several tips that can help you treat sciatica pain.

1.   Strengthen your core

The muscles of the core include the abs, back muscles and obliques. The diaphragm and the muscles of the pelvic floor are also considered to be part of your core muscles, too. When these muscles become weak, the spine isn’t supported as well, and this can lead to sciatic nerve pinching. For this reason, doing exercises that increase the strength of your core is a good tip if you want to treat the pain of sciatica.

2.   Stretch your back

Stretching your back can also be a good tip for treating sciatica. Like muscle weakness, tight muscles can pull the spine out of its normal alignment. This can cause the already small space between your vertebrae to become even smaller, and the decreased space could cause one of the sciatic nerves to be pinched. Stretching can help reduce tension in your back muscles, which can help return the spine to its normal alignment. In turn, the improved spinal alignment can release pressure on the pinched sciatic nerve. 

3.   Get in some low-impact cardio

One factor that may not be a good idea in your sciatica treatment is high-impact cardio. This type of cardio includes exercises like running and jumping, and the exercises in this category tend to place more stress on your joints and back. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any cardio in your sciatica recovery plan. It just means you should focus on low-impact cardio instead. In fact, adding low-impact exercises like biking, treadmill walking, stair machines or rowing can benefit your recovery from sciatica. 

Excel Sports & Physical Therapy can help you find effective sciatica pain treatment

Sciatica is a condition our team at Excel Sports & Physical Therapy has lots of experience treating. To start with, we’ll do a one-on-one screening to find out what’s causing this issue. The information we gather will then be used to build you a personalized physical therapy plan. This plan will be designed to attack sciatica from multiple angles using therapy techniques such as:

If you’re tired of dealing with the pain of sciatica, take the next step to begin treating your pain. Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an appointment.