Sciatica

Sciatica

I had never used visualization approaches to healing until a story told by one of the few doctors I really admire made me reconsider. This tale comes from Andrew Weil, M.D., professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and author of Natural Health, Natural Medicine, who has become one of the top national experts on natural, alternative medicine.

Dr. Weil tells of a woman who had excruciating sciatic pain for two years, during which time she sought help from some 20 doctors. Her pain continued undiminished.

Sciatica is a condition that involves pain that runs from the lower back to the buttocks and/or the outer back of the leg. It radiates along the sciatic nerve, hence the name. Sometimes the sciatic nerve fibers also become inflamed.

Perhaps you can imagine how this woman felt. I know I can: I suffered through some of the worst pain of my life after slipping a disk in my back, a condition related to sciatica.

After enduring two years of pain, this woman experienced a major breakthrough when her granddaughter paid her a visit. She forced herself to get out of bed to tend to the child. To her astonishment, she found that when she acted as if she felt all right, she actually felt better.

She abandoned her physicians, who apparently weren't able to help her much anyway, and started doing what she wanted to do instead of what they prescribed. She sought out acupuncture treatment to relieve her pain. She started taking vitamins, and she began listening to tapes containing visualization exercises aimed at healing back pain.

All of these treatments seemed to help: She felt better and kept improving. And she decided that the most important element of her self-devised program was her visualizations. Her basic technique was to imagine more blood going into her back.

Her pain finally disappeared completely. Dr. Weil checked up on her seven years later, and she was still fine, with no sciatic pain.

Green Pharmacy for Sciatica

Along with the several natural approaches that the woman in Dr. Weil's story tried, there are a number of herbs that might prove helpful in relieving this kind of pain.

Hayseed (a mixture of grass seeds, especially Anthoxanthon odoratum). Many years ago, the European naturopath Parson Kneipp learned what people in the Alps did with the seed heads of the various grasses that they stored as hay to feed their animals through the winter. They swept up the hayseed and added it to baths, because they had discovered that this seed has the ability to soothe painful backs, joints and muscles. Kneipp popularized the use of hayseed for this purpose, and today many Europeans subscribe to Kneipp therapy, using hayseed that has been packaged in bath bags or prepared in the form of hot
poultices.

The hot hayseed poultices used in Kneipp therapy have been approved by Commission E, the group of herbal medicine experts appointed by the German counterpart of the Food and Drug Administration to judge the safety and effectiveness of herbal therapies. According to Commission E, the poultices are effective for treating a range of rheumatic conditions as well as sciatica.

But how does hayseed work? It contains a good deal of a compound called coumarin, a camphorlike substance that boosts local blood flow when applied externally, according to Rudolph Fritz Weiss, M.D., Germany's leading herbal physician. (Dr. Weiss's book, Herbal Medicine, is used in German medical schools.)

I've heard pretty amazing testimonials endorsing hayseed baths and poultices for relieving sciatic pain. If I had sciatica, I would probably give this approach a try. Ask for Kneipp therapy at specialty bath or herb shops.

stinging nettle (Urtica dioica). People have been flailing their bad backs with the stinging nettle plant since Roman times. This is a practice that involves taking sprigs of the fresh plant and slapping it against the painful area.

Be warned, though: This practice stings like crazy. But that is part of the treatment. The sting is a counterirritant, something that causes minor pain and in effect fools the nervous system into disregarding deeper pain. That's not all that stinging nettle does, however. Chemicals in the stingers that cause inflammation seem to trigger the release of the body's natural anti-inflammatory chemicals. So the body's own medicine helps get rid of the sciatic inflammation.

Poultices made from stinging nettle are also good for sciatica, according to Dr. Weiss. (Remember that you need to wear gloves whenever you handle this plant to protect your palms from the stingers.)

Willow (Salix, various species). Willow bark contains salicin, the herbal equivalent of aspirin. It can help relieve sciatic pain, and Commission E recognizes it as an effective pain reliever for everything from headache to arthritis.

The salicin content of willow varies from species to species. I suggest starting with a low-dose tea made with a half-teaspoon of dried herb and working your way up to a dose that provides effective pain relief.

As with aspirin, long-term use of willow bark may cause stomach distress and even ulcers, so I suggest sweetening willow bark tea with a little licorice, which has ulcer-preventing benefits. And if you're allergic to aspirin, you probably shouldn't take herbal aspirin, either.

Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). Wintergreen contains methyl salicylate, a close relative of the salicin in willow bark, and it's about equal in its ability to relieve pain. It has a long history of use both internally in tea and externally in baths and ointments for relieving painful conditions, among them sciatica and gout. I use it both internally and externally myself.

Absorption through the skin may actually be more rapid than through the stomach. In the United States there are more than 40 products on drugstore shelves that contain methyl salicylate as the active ingredient. All are for external use, and most are used to treat various kinds of pain, most frequently arthritic, rheumatic and sciatic pain.

Warning: You must keep products containing wintergreen oil or any product containing methyl salicylate out of the reach of children. The minty smell can be very tempting, but ingesting even small amounts can prove fatal to young children. In the United States, liquid preparations containing significant amounts of methyl salicylate (more than five milliliters) must have child-resistant packaging. You don't have to worry about wintergreen tea, but do take precautions with commercial pain-relief products intended for external use.

Wintergreen Wintergreen is a low-growing evergreen shrub with edible red berries; it's also known as spiceberry or teaberry.

Chinese angelica (Angelica sinensis). Also known as dang-quai, Chinese angelica is revered in traditional Chinese medicine as the leading treatment for gynecological complaints. It's often called the female ginseng. But Chinese angelica also has mild sedative, pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic properties that make it a good herb to try for sciatica.

In China, physicians inject their patients with Chinese angelica extract to treat sciatic pain. I've reviewed data from Chinese clinical trials showing that when this extract is injected into the acupuncture points used to treat sciatica, about 90 percent of people receiving treatment report significant improvement.

I wouldn't recommend injecting it, but it might be useful taken in a tea or tincture. I suggest adding it to wintergreen tea. (Do not take this herb if you are pregnant, however.)

Country mallow (Sida cordifolia). India's traditional Ayurvedic physicians have long used this herb to treat sciatica and other painful muscular and nervous system complaints. The reason appears to be its high concentration of ephedrine: It contains some 850 parts per million. The compound ephedrine is best known as a bronchial decongestant and stimulant, but it also is something of a muscle tonic, which is presumably why it helps relieve sciatica.

Mustard (Brassica nigra, Sinapis alba and others). Ever hear of a mustard plaster? This home treatment has a long folk history of use as a treatment for both respiratory complaints and rheumatic problems like sciatica.

Mustard is aromatic, which accounts for some of its use as a bronchial decongestant. But there's a different reason that it's used for sciatica, arthritis, lumbago, neuralgia and rheumatism. Mustard is a rubefacient counterirritant, which means it cause a soothing feeling of warmth on the skin while its counterirritant properties cause mild irritation, distracting the body from the deeper pain of sciatica. The combination of heat and counterirritation has a pain-relieving effect.

Sciatica cress (Lepidium, various species). Down South, this plant is also called peppergrass. Herbalists recommend applying fresh sciatica cress externally as a pain reliever. Like mustard, this herb is both a rubefacient and a counterirritant, and it contains the same hot compounds (isothiocyanates) as mustard.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) and sesame (Sesamum indicum). Medical anthropologist John Heinerman, Ph.D., author of Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs, recommends this Egyptian treatment for sciatica: Mix two tablespoons of grated ginger with three tablespoons of sesame oil and one teaspoon of lemon juice. Rub this mixture into the affected area. My guess is that this helps because ginger, too, is a rubefacient.