What Is Sciatica: Meaning, Causes, Risk Factors, Treatment and Prevention

Nowadays, there is an increasing number of people suffering from lower back pain. For some, it is due to their hectic life schedule and work life, but for some, it may result from some underlying problems such as sciatica. Sciatica is a condition that affects the sciatic nerve running down the hips and buttocks.

So, in this article, we have covered every point relating to sciatica. Let’s begin!

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica refers to the pain corresponding to the sciatic nerve injury. We have a pair of sciatic nerves on each side running through our hips and buttocks to our legs.

What Are the Types of Sciatica?

Sciatica can manifest as mild to severe pain focusing on the lower back, legs, buttocks, and hips. Basically, sciatica is divided into two types:

Sciatica-like Conditions: In this condition, the symptoms appear to be like sciatica but happen due to some other reason.
True Sciatica: True Sciatica happens due to direct injury to the sciatic nerve.

What are the Causes of Sciatica?

Sciatica mainly deals with the sciatic nerve. Therefore, any disease that might impact the sciatic nerve can cause sciatica. Also, as it is a bundle of five spinal nerves, any injury to them can cause sciatica.

Tumours or Cysts or Other Growths: Any tumour or cyst around the sciatic nerve will put pressure on it and hence cause sciatica.
Foraminal Stenosis: Foraminal stenosis is the condition where the parts of your spine get narrowed down and compress your spinal nerves.
Spondylolisthesis: In this condition, the spine becomes unstable and moves forward more than normal.
Herniated Disks: The tearing or leakage of the disks present between your vertebrae is known as herniated disks. This spillage can compress the sciatic nerve and can cause back pain.
Spinal Stenosis: Spinal stenosis refers to the abnormal narrowing of the lower portion of the spinal canal, which consequently stresses the roots of the sciatic nerve.
Pregnancy: As known to everyone, because of the growing baby, every other organ around the uterus gets compressed. Hence, your sciatic nerve can also get compressed and result in sciatica.
Injuries: Any kind of injury to the sciatic nerve can cause improper functioning of the nerve and thereby cause sciatica.
Piriformis Syndrome: In this disease, the piriformis muscle works involuntarily due to neuromuscular dysfunction and causes sciatica.

What are the Symptoms of Sciatica?

This section discusses the most common symptoms of sciatic nerve injury:

Generalised Weakness in Muscles: Muscle weakness is considered to be one of the most severe symptoms of sciatica, which means that the nerve signals are facing problems in reaching the legs and back.
Numbness: Numbness means no sensation. This usually occurs when the nerve signals have problems reaching the brain.
Paresthesia: Paresthesia refers to the tingling and pricking sensation that is chiefly caused by any damage to the sciatic nerve.
Pain: When your sciatic nerve gets pressurised, the affected individual feels pain. Generally, the patients describe this type of pain as an electric shock that radiates to the legs. Pain intensity increases with activities such as sneezing, bending, and coughing.
Faecal and Urinary Incontinence: This also counts as a very severe symptom as this indicates the improper functioning of the sciatic nerve and the inability to control the bladder and bowel.

What are the Risk Factors of Developing Sciatica?

Several risk factors cause sciatica and some of them are discussed below:

Age: With increasing age, our spine undergoes several changes, some of which could cause sciatic nerve pinching and sciatica.
Extended Hours of Sitting: Sedentary people are more likely to develop sciatica than actively working people.
Job: Occupations that require carrying heavy things or involve long hours of sitting may contribute to developing sciatica.
Diabetes: Diabetes is the underlying cause of several other diseases. Hence, it also increases the risk of damage to your sciatic nerve.
Obesity: As obesity puts stress on the spine, it also has a very high chance of damaging the sciatic nerve.
Tobacco: Nicotine has a big impact on the blood circulation of our body and hence can damage your sciatic nerve.

What is the Recommended Treatment of Sciatica?

Sciatica can be cured with some self-care measures such as:

Ice Pack: This can be used for the first few days for 20 minutes at a time to reduce the symptomatic pain.
Hot Compress: After using a cold compress for the initial days, turn to a hot compress. Use it for 20 min at a m stretch. If this doesn’t reduce the pain, use a hot and cold compress simultaneously and find out which relieves your pain.
OTC Drugs: These are generally NSAIDs, which are known to reduce associated swelling and pain.
Light Stretching: Get in touch with an instructor and learn the proper stretching techniques that will help strengthen your core muscles.

If it does not reduce with time, you may need to switch to conservative treatment. They include the following:

Prescribed Medicines: The doctors may prescribe muscle relaxants and painkillers to help with sciatica symptoms.
Spinal injections: These are corticosteroids that provide local anaesthesia and reduce discomfort.
Physical Therapy: Physical Therapy includes exercises that help to reduce the pressure on the sciatic nerve.
Alternative Therapies: This includes acupuncture, yoga, and chiropractic. Chiropractors help in spinal adjustments.

When to See a Doctor If You Suspect Sciatica?

If you suspect sciatica, seek medical help after:

Residual severe pain after an accident or injury
Muscle weakness and numbness paired with excruciating pain
Urinary incontinence and bowel incontinence

How to Prevent Sciatica?

It is a well-known saying that “Prevention is better than cure”. So let’s go through some of the preventive measures to keep us from developing sciatica:

Good Posture While Sitting: Having poor posture while sitting has a great impact on your spine and thereby affects your sciatic nerve as well. So, maintaining a good posture can help you prevent sciatica.
Learn Proper Lifting Techniques: Sometimes, if heavy items are not lifted properly, it could lead to herniated disks, which is again a causative factor of sciatica.
Exercise: Maintaining an active lifestyle can help reduce the chances of sciatica.
No Smoking: Smoking contributes to developing disk generation and hence may lead to sciatica.

Sciatica is a painful condition that results from any kind of injury to the sciatic nerve. This may manifest as numbness or tingling sensation in the lower portion of your body. You can relieve the symptoms for the time being by cold and hot compress or by consuming OTC drugs. However, if the symptoms intensify, immediately seek medical help.

FAQs about What is Sciatica

All

Is sciatica a serious problem?

Sciatica is not a serious problem and can be better with self-care treatments.

Can sciatica be cured?

Approximately 95% of the cases of sciatica get cured with conservative treatment without surgical intervention.

What kind of doctor treats Sciatica?

Generally, sciatica is treated by orthopaedic doctors, chiropractors, or neurologists.