Just a reminder, I’m not a writer, I don’t believe I express myself the greatest and I never thought I’d end up blogging about anything in a million years. So pardon my atrocious grammar, but I’m not interested in perfect grammar, I’m interested in letting others know, in a real legit situation, my situation, what I went through with my personal experience with sciatic nerve pain. Which ended up being a long and hard 2 years of suffering.
What information I found about Sciatica
While looking for a cure to sciatica I was constantly faced with the same regurgitated information. Most of which said things like “you’ll be ok, it’s just a few weeks deal and everything will go back to normal.” Yeah right! As soon as I would read that off I went to the next website of the same quality. I slowly started to get something I like to call “information frustration”. Why can’t I just find someone’s experience? Just let me know how it happened, how you got there, what you did, what worked, what didn’t!? I swore the minute I got out of this pain if ever, I’d do something about getting information to other sufferers.
Here’s a quote from the Mayo Clinic: “Sciatica most commonly occurs when a herniated disk, bone spur on the spine or narrowing of the spine (spinal stenosis) compresses part of the nerve. This causes inflammation, pain and often some numbness in the affected leg. Although the pain associated with sciatica can be severe, most cases resolve with non-operative treatments in a few weeks.”
Ya see what I mean?
Sciatica: Why I didn’t notice it happening and never sought treatment
For years I had back issues. I had a car accident and the doctor told me I would have pain for the rest of my life. So I thought it was related to that and just let things go and did nothing about it. But that was a serious mistake. I should’ve started researching my symptoms at that time. But as you well know life gets in the way as I mentioned in my last article and you just forget the pain or even push through the pain, I just dealt with it. But slowly it just started getting worse, it was a different type of pain.
What I felt at first
I was having symptoms of tailbone pain, not able to sit for long periods of time. Then it wasn’t just sitting anymore it was walking for too long. After that, it was laying down too long. I wasn’t really sure what was going on but I should’ve done something before I got to where it really started to change my life.
Never ignore Sciatic Nerve Pain
I didn’t know what it was, of course now we know it was sciatica, but at that time I felt little symptoms just creeping up slowly from the tailbone to the buttocks, later on to the back of the thigh, later on to my knee, my calf down to my ankle, and then finally to the big toe.
Never, never, never ignore sciatic nerve symptoms. It’ll just keep crawling down your leg all the way down to your toe like it did to me.
I never knew what was going to hit me and it was bad.
Some other symptoms came to light were that I was having problems with actually going to the bathroom, bowel movement issues. Of course, I had the foot pain, I had the toe pain, leg pain, and I even had groin pain. When it’s getting that bad you need to seek help, this is not going go away on its own, you need to be proactive.
Find Sciatic Leg Pain Treatment ASAP!
When I finally decided to seek treatment I first decided to go to a chiropractor he did take an x-ray and said I had scoliosis, I wondered if it was related but not even he had that answer. He did some adjustments here and there but nothing really changed.
Later on, I decided to go to my doctor she wasn’t available so they put me with a physician’s assistant which knew zero about my problem she just told me to take ibuprofen.
After I couldn’t handle it anymore I made another appointment this time I was to see my personal doctor and she immediately sent me to have a CT scan and that showed several bulging disc’s.
After they found a bulging desk I got so happy because I thought for sure now they, not only will they believe me, but would give me something to help the pain and give me some treatment of some kind, boy was I wrong.
Sciatica Caused Frustration and Anxiety
After more than a year with pain at this point I could still kind of walk around but it was affecting my life especially my home life and what I could do with my kids. It was hard for me to get in and out of the car I could still drive at this point but getting in and out was really hard.
My doctor gave me some muscle relaxers after the second or third visit but these would just help me sleep and just kept me drowsy the whole day. I stopped using it after a while and just focus on ibuprofen which would relieve a very minuscule amount of pain for about an hour or less.
The frustration that came every time I would try to look up a cure for sciatic nerve pain it was all the same stuff over and over again I went to so many places I even asked around if anybody knew anybody else with sciatic pain so I can get some face-to-face experiences from people and maybe even a resolution to my problem. But nothing! I did end up using muscle relaxers in a diffrent way see my article about that here: Do muscle relaxers help with sciatic pain?
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Searching for The Cause Meant NOTHING!
Armed with two diagnoses, doctors galore, appointments to therapists, and all the information that’s on the Internet; there I was… still in the same exact spot if not even worse. I thought there had to be a better way, there has to be someone else like me that would have some kind of information. I hate the fact that anyone would have to go through so many avenues in order to find something that apparently is very common and still there’s no clear answers not even consulting with experts!
Hopefully this information can keep you on track and motivate you to seek help immediately. My advice is to keep moving, fix your posture and don’t overdo it. Following articles will be about my continued push to find answers to this growing problem.
My new YouTube channel is up it’s called: My Sciatic Journey.
Photo credits:
Main:Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash Frustration: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Hello,
I’m desperately trying to find some constructive information of my sciatic journey, am I getting better, why do many different types & intensities of pain and like you just cannot find anything! Looking forward to reading your journey to see if I get some help and become a proper mum again x
Yes I have many articles on here to help put and will be writing some more soon. I am on Youtube also if you want to listen. Hope you get better soon! Sandy
Ok,so did you ever get over it? cause for me it’s 9 months of unimaginable pain that it’s making me think that the pain is what’s going to be the cause of my death.
Hi Frank, I can say happily that I DID! It was a terrible 2 YEARS for me, I felt the same as you, I was in fact withering away with no hope in sight, no relief at all until I took matters into my own hands. Please read the other articles as I go into depth on what I did to get better. Hope you get over it soon….its no fun at all! Thank you for visiting my journey, let me know how it goes. Sandy
I’ve been on this journey for about 3 years now. I found that working out especially core and glutes made a difference. I used to do traditional strength training moves but have since eliminated almost all flexion based exercises. Low carbs also worked some; I remembered this after reading Sandy’s article on diet. My concern is that now both sides are starting to hurt and it is now affecting sleep. I have started taking some Tylenol every now and then or some NSAIDS. I will start taking NAC to counter the negative effects pain meds will have on my liver and kidneys.
Yes that was always my concern the liver and kidneys, but of you look at my articles I go into a lot of that and what ended up working, you’ve definitely need to do something before it gets worst or its harder to get rid of. Hope that helps! Sandy
Thank you very much for your sharing.
I have the same condition for two months.
I am 51 years old.
felt despair and constant crying.
Sensitive to drugs because of gastritis and reflux
I only take paracetamol.
I don’t know what to do and I’m very depressed
I’m so sorry to hear that and I know perfectly what you mean, I was right there where you are for 2 years! Please see my blog about the book I found at my local library with the exercises. I hope they help you! Thank you! and I hope you find relief very soon.