Patients with severely painful symptoms seek to alleviate sciatica through any means necessary. This is understandable, since sciatic nerve expressions can be some of the most agonizing and physically disabling of all neuromusculoskeletal pain syndromes. However, despite their best efforts, the majority of patients can not find cures for their sciatica, nor can they even manage to adequately minimize their pain to tolerable levels. The results are catastrophic; affecting work, family time, leisure activities, overall health and sanity.
The single most common question we receive from readers inquires about the best way to alleviate the burden of pain caused by sciatica. Patients are desperate for answers and in this focused dissertation, we intend to provide guidance on finding effectual symptomatic reduction, with minimal risk to general health and wellness.
Impediments to Alleviating Sciatica
Sciatica is known to be a therapy-defiant pain syndrome. The condition has a reputation as stubborn and difficult to resolve, even among the most optimistic doctors. Any chronic sciatica patient will surely attest to this fact, since they have been suffering for a very long time with often intractable pain that affects all areas of life. However, very few patients or doctors realize the actual reason why sciatica is so difficult to cure. This is where the entire treatment process goes awry for so many sufferers.
Very rarely do indicated treatments fail to resolve their causative source in the modern medical arena. Therapies have been scientifically-designed to provide excellent results for the conditions they seek to treat. However, in a great number of cases, the condition being treated is not the actual source of pain. This is called misdiagnosed sciatica and it is one of the most significant of all problems in the dorsalgia sector.
If the suspected cause of pain is not correctly identified, then any treatment that targets this inaccurately diagnosed symptomatic source will inherently fail. This is logical. Unfortunately, in our experience we see misdiagnosis as a virtually epidemic occurrence, with so many patients receiving care for “causative issues” that are neither the actual cause of their sciatica, nor the cause of any pain or neurological expression at all.
Statistics clearly point out that the overwhelming majority of structural “defects” in the spine are innocent of causing any pain. Statistics also clearly demonstrate that most soft tissue pathologies blamed for causing sciatica, such as muscular imbalances and piriformis enacted nerve compression, are usually not evidence-based diagnoses and instead are highly subjective guesses based on past treatment failures.
Of course misdiagnosis does not mean that a structural issue does not exist. It simply means that the discovered abnormality is not the cause of pain. Structure does not predict pain and what were once considered abnormalities in the spine are now seen as perfectly normal age-and-activity-related occurrences by objective doctors, but are still actively treated by those care providers whose minds are stuck in an antiquated age of ineffective therapy.
Alleviate Pain Logically
The possibility for misdiagnosis aside, it is crucial to think logically when trying to ascertain why treatments have failed time and time again. Let’s create a mental map of some basic anatomical truths:
First, the primary imperative of the body is healing. We have evolved to be the supreme species on this planet and have an amazing capacity for healing. We are much stronger than we know. The very worst injuries in the anatomy will typically heal within weeks, while most injuries will only cause pain for a few days. How is it logical to think that injury that occurred years ago is still acutely painful today?
Treatments are designed to enact change and produce a result. If the anatomical change is indeed enacted, but the result is poor pain relief, then it is logical to assume that the condition treated was not the cause of pain. While people understand this in theory, they have a difficult time applying it to their own personal pain profiles and often seek treatment after treatment for the same diagnosed condition, suffering poor results each and every time, but never questioning the validity of the original diagnosis.
It is simple medical fact that the symptomatic span of most sciatica sufferings goes far beyond the types of expressions that could possibly be caused by the diagnoses they are commonly blamed upon. For example, a herniated disc that is theorized to be compressing a nerve at L4/L5 can produce sciatica-type symptoms in part of the affected leg, but can not and will not produce wide ranging pain that encompasses the entire leg or moves locations regularly. Nevertheless, these types of illogical structural relationships are inherently parts of the diagnostic process, despite their lack of any common sense.
So How Can I Alleviate Sciatica?
We do not have any universally applicable answer for how each and every reader can definitively relieve their sciatica for good. There are simply far too many diagnostic possibilities, so it would be unsound to postulate about the cause of pain in any particular patient. We will not make the same errors that are commonly committed by doctors, chiropractors and therapists every day in the course of working with the victims of back and leg pain. Instead, we will offer some universally-applicable guidance that can and will help patients to get on the right path towards alleviating their own pain:
First and foremost, learn all you can about sciatica. Just reading this particular web resource is a great start, since we focus on nothing else and have the largest database of dedicated articles on the subject on the entire world wide web.
Once you are done here, research elsewhere and compare notes on your sources. It is up to you to choose what you will believe in your search for relief, but be sure to use logic to make this decision. Additionally, be wary of believing sources that are actively marketing a particular product or treatment, as their objectively is highly questionable.
Talk to your doctor. Ask them questions and demand answers. The more you learn, the better prepared you will be to deal with them on their level. If they will not entertain your queries or provide answers that defy logic, then consider looking elsewhere for more quality and enlightened care.
If you have any doubts about the validity of the diagnosis, do not proceed into treatment. This is particularly true for patients who have received surgical recommendations. Most spinal surgeries are not needed, not effective and often do far more permanent harm than good.
Finally, when seeking a cure for any definitive diagnosis, be sure to avoid the symptomatic treatment trap. These types of therapies will never resolve the causative condition and will only enslave you for the long-term. Instead, seek out curative modalities when they are available and seek to end the pain by resolving its origin completely.
