Sciatica

The largest nerve in your body can be quite unnerving, causing one massive pain in your buttocks—literally. Sciatica is a pain in the sciatic nerve that radiates from the buttocks down the back of the leg to the knee or even to the big toe. Often one side of the hip feels worse than the other.

Sciatica can result when the nerve is pinched from sitting on a hard stool, wearing a tight belt or even carrying a wallet in your back pocket. It’s usually treated with a series of supervised exercises by a physical therapist. The natural remedies in this chapter—in conjunction with medical care and used with the approval of your doctor—may help prevent or ease sciatica, according to some health professionals.

Food Therapy

“I don’t know why it works, but studies show that some people with sciatica have gotten relief by consuming large amounts of potassium,” says Julian Whitaker, M.D., founder and president of the Whitaker Wellness Center in Newport Beach, California. “I’d advise eating as many potassium-rich foods as possible—things such as bananas, oranges and potatoes.” (For more food sources of potassium, see “Getting What You Need” on page 142.)

Hydrotherapy

A shallow bath provides effective relief of sciatica pain, suggests Agatha Thrash, M.D., a medical pathologist and co-founder and co-director of Uchee Pines Institute, a natural healing center in Seale, Alabama. Fill your bathtub with enough warm water, about body temperature, to cover you up to the waist, then soak for 20 minutes to two hours. Finish each bath with a shower that starts out with lukewarm water and ends with cool. If the pain is too intense to sit in a tub, Dr. Thrash recommends a hot shower. Stay in it for 20 minutes or so, holding the water in the tub, since it warms up the venous blood returning from the feet.

Massage

Here is a massage for sciatica from Elaine Stillerman, L.M.T., a massage therapist in New York City: First, sit comfortably in a chair, on a bed or on a padded surface on the floor. Support your lower back with pillows or cushions. Rub massage cream between your hands, and with open palms, use effleurage (page 570) to stroke from behind the knee to the hip for two to three minutes. Second, massage from the hip down to the back of the knee, moving your fingertips back and forth to apply friction. Follow the course of the sciatic nerve as you go down your leg, rubbing across the nerve. Do this three times, followed by three effleurage strokes. Third, using a loose fist to apply tapotement (page 571), gently tap on the back of the thigh from the hip to the knee and back again. Continue doing this for 10 to 30 seconds. Finish the sequence with three effleurage strokes.

If any of these strokes feels particularly comfortable, Stillerman suggests repeating it several times before continuing with the sequence. When you are finished, she says, rub an ice cube or put a cloth-covered ice pack on the painful area to soothe the nerve. You can do this massage every day, she adds. Besides helping to relieve existing pain, the massage may also prevent sciatica flare-ups, she explains.

Do not do this massage if the sciatic nerve is inflamed, according to Stillerman. She also cautions that pregnant women should use extremely gentle pressure when they do tapotement; too much pressure could stimulate the saphenous nerve, which leads into the pelvic area, causing uterine contractions.

Reflexology

Work the sciatic nerve and shoulder reflex points on the bottoms of your feet, says St. Petersburg, Florida, reflexologist Dwight Byers, author of Better Health with Foot Reflexology. He also suggests working the hip/sciatic nerve points near your ankles.

To help you locate these points, consult the foot reflex chart on page 592. For instructions on how to work the points, see “Your Reflexology Session” on page 110.

Yoga

If your doctor says your sciatica is caused by a herniated or severely bulging disk, you may need surgery, says Mary Pullig Schatz, M.D., physician, yoga teacher and author of Back Care Basics. But if the problem is diagnosed as a slightly bulging disk or a tight piriformis muscle, Dr. Schatz says that daily practice of the following yoga stretches may be the best remedy: the easy bridge pose (page 619), the leg up, leg out exercise (page 626) and the piriformis stretch (page 627). These exercises may also serve as good preventive maintenance against sciatica pain, says Dr. Schatz. Note: Do not do the easy bridge pose during the second half of pregnancy.

Daily practice of the baby pose (page 618) may also help relieve or prevent sciatica flare-ups, notes Stephen A. Nezezon, M.D., yoga teacher and staff physician at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

See also Backache