The Top 13 Treatments That Absolutely Make Sciatica Pain Worse

Sciatica treatments can be so complicated very often what works for one person causes a lot of pain for another person. Even healthcare professionals don’t all agree on what works for sure. And our medical research doesn’t have solid answers only best guesses at this time when it comes to sciatica treatments.

But there are a few things that consistently make sciatica worse. In this video, I’m going to explain the top 13 things that absolutely make pain from sciatica worse figure for stretches like this one that are focused on stretching the back side of the hip where the sciatica problem might be felt most are not a good idea.

Because putting more stretch on an irritated sciatic nerve tends to make it worse, but the people that get benefit from this exercise usually have more of a muscle tightening. And so doing this might provide some short-term relief.

But if you have more of a nerve problem rather than a muscle problem, this is going to make it worse. Here’s another variation of the figure for stretch is actually a yoga move called the pigeon pose. It’s doing the same thing we’re looking at stretching the backside of the hip here. Here’s another variation of the figure for stretch.

Sometimes I have patients coming in telling me that they’re doing this one where they put their leg up on the table and lean forward to get a stretch in that same back hip area. Number two is hamstring stretches. Very often hamstring stretches are done this way, they’re done all kinds of different positions I’ll show you in just a moment.

But doing this adds tension to that sciatic nerve and that nerve runs from the spine goes down the back of the thigh, down the back of the leg and into the foot. So even grabbing your toes like this and pulling them up really adds a ton of tension to the sciatic nerve and keeps it aggravated. Here’s another way to stretch the hamstring. And here’s another common way that hamstrings are often stretched.

Number three is massage guns like these, using these in an irritated nerve are known to aggravate nerves because nerves don’t like to be stretched as we just talked about. And they also don’t like vibration. Even though you’re trying to massage muscles in the area, maybe even you’re targeting the nerve, which is a bad idea, you’re creating vibration that the nerves can sense and that keeps him irritated for longer.

Now once in a while I will tell my clients to use something like this. But that’s after we know that the sciatica problem has become under control. The nerve is not the main priority and the remaining issues or just stiff tight muscles. In that case, then using a massage gun would be appropriate on the muscles, but not on the nerve, especially if it’s irritated. On the same thread. Number four is getting a professional massage.

Now this is a step up from using the massage going because hopefully you have somebody who knows where to put their hands. The trouble is that most massage therapists although they’re great at their job at relaxing tight muscles, they’re not always 100% unknown exactly where the nerve is, in differentiating between what a nerve feels like and what a muscle feels like. And if they find a nerve and they’re rubbing on it unknowingly, they can aggravate the problem even more so.

So you might be able to find a massage therapist that really understands the difference between the nerve and muscle. If you feel comfortable proceeding with one then go ahead. But if you’re just seeing a general massage therapist like a feel good type of massage therapist in hopes of making your sciatica problem better, don’t get your hopes up. In fact, it might get worse.

Number five is better wrist this is common advice from general doctors helping somebody with sciatica, because they know that it tends to get worse the more you move around, doctors will just say sometimes don’t do anything. In fact, go lie down. Just rest.

Give it a week, give it two weeks. And this is not good advice because we know that nerves like movements, however, you have to find the movement that works best for your current situation. And if you’re severely irritated right now, it may not be a whole lot of movement. But if you go lie down and do nothing, then your nerves have the potential to get tremendously worse. Because the way that nerves heal is with gradual general movements.

If you think about it, nerves run throughout your entire body. They run from your spine out into your fingertips down into your legs all the way to your toe tips. Your sciatic nerve comes off your lower back and runs all the way to your toes, there’s branches that reach your toes. Having movements in your body helps nerves it’s the way that the body is designed to move and how nerves are supposed to move.

So if you do absolutely nothing and just lie in bed, you’re going to probably get worse. Leg Raise exercises like these are very often given to patients at physical therapy clinics. And the hope is that they’re strengthening muscles on the front of the hip to get generally stronger hip muscles but the problem is the way the sciatic nerve runs and runs in the back of the hip back of the thigh back of the calf.

You’re actually adding more stretch to it so you’re tensioning it this is almost just like doing the stretches that we talked about at the very very beginning of this video. This is not a good idea to be doing if your sciatica problem has calmed down, even then it wouldn’t be a good idea because most of the time the root problem that’s causing sciatica is a muscle imbalance that this very exercise is making worse.

So all around this is a bad idea of an exercise. back extension exercises like these, these are called Superman’s where you’re picking up your arms and your head and then down here at the feet, you’re picking up your feet at the same time. This exercise focuses on using these back muscles right here. And very often part of the muscle imbalance that sets up sciatica is that these back muscles are too strong, and they’re compressing the lower back and pinching nerves in the area.

So it’s not a good idea to be doing these exercises, it may feel good to do them in the short term because you’re getting movement to the area. And some of the muscles that have not felt very well in a while are now getting some movement and trying to work the way that they should. But in the long term, this just adds more and more compression, it can cause herniated discs, which can definitely contribute to sciatica problems.

So you want to take this one off your list of exercises to do if you’re trying to heal a sciatica problem. Another stretch that’s commonly done is twisting stretches, people often sit down and twist and stretch this way to get all the muscles in the hip and back to stretch out and loosen up. This is okay, as long as you’re not too aggressive. If you feel like it’s a big stretch, it can actually make your sciatica problem worse.

Because when you twist your spine like this, if you’re sad, your problem is related to a herniated disc in your lower back, the discs in your back are not designed to take twisting very well like this. And if you force a very extreme, twist your lower back, you’re going to keep that disc herniated and potentially make it worse, which is going to further pinch the nerve and make the sciatica problem worse.

So you want to avoid aggressive twisting. And I do have some patients, sometimes they just enjoy getting this done a little bit. And I’ll tell them, Hey, as long as it’s not really aggressive, and you feel like you benefit, like you’re better overall, especially if you’ve done this several times, and you’re not forcing anything that pop because if you’re forcing things to pop, when you do this, you’re potentially loosening that disk quite a bit, you want to make sure to also use your abs, if you tighten up your abs while you turn, it’s going to not let you turn so much.

But it’s going to allow your disk some protection, because that’s what the ABS do is they limit how far you rotate. So you need to get stronger abs in the long run but tightening up your abs. While doing this twisting motion is a safer way to do it. Overall, I would avoid twisting, many people try to do yoga in order to help their sciatica problem. And poses like this one, the downward dog pose are generally not a good idea.

Because of all the tension that you’re putting through your sciatic nerve, this actually stretches the nerve quite a bit. And if it’s already irritated, it’s only going to make it worse over time, any sort of stretch where your legs are straight and you’re bringing your head and your hands towards your feet, it’s going to aggravate your nerves more any sort of exercise or stretch where your hands are going towards your feet like this adds a lot of stretching to the sciatic nerve because the spinal cords on the backside of the body.

So you’re put you’re forcing the spinal cord around the backside of the body, then that sciatic nerves around the back of the hip. So you’re just adding tons of stretch and compression to it, you’re going to make it worse over time. In true sciatica, where the nerve is irritated yoga is generally not a good idea.

If you have more tightness from muscles in the area, like the hamstrings are some of the glute muscles, you can also get tightness in the calf and foot muscles, then yoga may help you in that sense.

This is why some people do actually have success with yoga. But it seems that in their case, they probably had more of a muscle problem than they had a nerve problem in yoga is fantastic for helping muscles free up and joints free up. And if that’s primarily your issue, then yoga is likely going to benefit you.

But if it’s truly a nerve problem, like you’re getting numbness and tingling, your muscles aren’t working the same, like you’re getting a foot drop or you can’t control your toes the same way. That’s more like a nerve problem and pursuing yoga to help your sciatic nerve problem is not going to end very well. Number 10 sleeping on the floor.

Many people come into the office saying that that’s the only position they can get comfortable in. What you have to realize with this is if your body is irritated if your sciatic nerves are irritated, when you go to bed, the input around you the sounds and the lights and everything in your environment.

Because think about it if it’s daytime, there’s usually light coming in from outside or maybe you’re already outside you might be talking to people you might have the radio on or a television on. There’s general background noise, that’s all input to your brain.

But when you go to sleep when you dim the lights when the sounds are cut out when the conversations end, now you’re left with only your body are these senses and it usually becomes more aware of the pain that it’s feeling.

That’s why sciatic problems can hurt more at night and even wake you up from pain. And very often the people that are finding themselves sleeping on the floor, they’re tossing and turning because they’re uncomfortable from the irritation that they’re in believing blame the mattress very often and sometimes it can’t be the mattress but less likely it’s their body.

That’s the problem that the mattress, but once they finally get tired of trying the bed, then they’ll end up on the floor. And at that point, they’re so tired and they just fall asleep. It doesn’t matter the position they’re in, they’re more tired than they are in pain at the moment.

 So the real issue with sleeping on the floor is you’ve got to think about how to fix the sciatica problem during the day how to bring the irritation levels down overall so that you can better tolerate sleeping in your own bed your soft, comfy bed so that you can get a full night’s rest because that’s when you heal the most the more sleep you can get when you’re injured, the quicker you can heal.

Number 11 relying on pain medications, when you have true nerve pain, like a sciatic nerve pain, taking medications like ibuprofen, diclofenac, naproxen these are all NSAID medication, non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs, they tend to not help out a nerve problem.

If you’ve taken these medications and you feel like you’re Sciatica your Sciatica pain is tremendously better, then you likely have more of a joint or muscle problem then you have a nerve problem. medications that do help sciatica are going to be like Lyrica and gabapentin, those are medications focused on nerve symptoms, nerve pain.

Either way, whether you’re taking the NSAIDs or you’re taking the nerve pain medication Lyrica and gabapentin, there’s others out there, these medications are not treating the root of the problem, they’re simply taking away the pain for a short amount of time.

And they may allow the problem to fester to get worse over time, because if it’s a muscle imbalance, which is usually the case, then the stronger muscles can continue to get even stronger, because it gets used more. And the weaker muscles continue to get weaker, they get further out of balance. And this tends to make sciatica problems worse over time.

Now, in certain cases, it’s appropriate to take medication, I mean, if you can’t sleep at night, the doctor might recommend you a certain medication that helps you to not have pain so you can sleep or if you just need to get through your day because you’re you have certain responsibilities, you have people that you’re taking care of. And you just need to not feel as much pain so that you can tolerate the day, that’s fine, too.

The problem is when you’re relying on it, when weeks months or longer go by, and you’re still taking pain medications, and you haven’t committed the time to fix the root problem, then you’re potentially harming your internal organs and creating a dependency on these medications that you don’t want to be dealing with in the long term.

Number 12 intense or impactful activities, especially exercises, like squats like this, the more you cause your body to stress and strain by using the muscles in an irritated state. Like when you’re sad, if the problem is hurting you, it’s going to potentially pull the bones, the muscles, the joints, Pinson nerves in an inappropriate way that’s going to worsen your problem.

And some people will go do the exercises that they’re used to doing already, but run into more pain and they have the idea of I’m going to push through it, no pain, no gain mentality. And that is not a good approach when it comes to trying to fix a sciatica problem. So if you’re used to doing squats, even if you have great form, like my friend here, you don’t want to be doing it if your sciatica is bothering you throughout the exercise.

As you get more tired in the exercise. Like even if you’re doing the exercise, like running, if you’re in a cardio machine, if you’re cycling, using an elliptical, any sort of weightlifting activities, any sort of dynamic movement activities like sports, like if you’re playing basketball, soccer, football, anything where you’re having to cut and change directions, it’s going to require your body to generate good stability and good strength.

And the longer you do it over time, the more tired you’re going to get, which means you’re going to use your most dominant muscles, which are usually part of the problem. They’re feeding the muscle imbalance. So you want to hold off on any sort of impactful intense activities until you’re certain that your sciatica problem is gone. And you can return to your activities, feeling confident going into them.

Number 13 is getting surgery for sciatica problems. Usually doctors might recommend to you a disk repair surgery or a disk removal surgery. Sometimes it’s called a diskectomy. And in some cases, the recommend a fusion surgery where they fuse together two of the backbones and they use metal screws and rods that they’re putting into the bone to reduce the amount of motion between two vertebrae.

They do this to take pressure off a compressed nerve that could be sending pain down into your leg causing those sciatica symptoms. That the reason why I said this makes it worse is there’s certain situations now let me be 100% clear on this. I’m not saying that surgery is always going to make it work.

There’re certain situations where if the MRI shows that the disc of the lower back, a herniated disc is compressing on the nerve, it’s quite obvious, and there’s pain going down the leg, like you have your sciatica symptoms, then that might be a situation where surgery is absolutely going to help. And you’re probably doing the right thing by going into get the operation done.

But if your herniated disk, if you have a herniated disc in your sciatica problem, it’s not that bad. It’s not directly pinching the nerve. Then there’s other places in your body where you can be pinching the nerve besides the spine, very often in the pelvis, bones in the hips, those can shift around and move. And that’s debated in the medical field.

But we see that happen all the time. And we know how to find it and correct it. And we can correct that that takes a ton of pressure off the sciatic nerve, and can allow you to feel tremendously better even if your disc is herniated. In some cases, we have patients that come in here, and that herniated disk is actually compressing the nerve.

But when we fix the pelvis, when we look at the muscle imbalances, and we address that they’re good enough that they don’t need surgery, even though they have a herniated disk that’s compressing a nerve that this mindset of waiting on surgery is becoming slightly more mainstream.

It’s still not. There’s gradually more research medical research coming out showing that the procedures that have been done for sciatica, for pinched nerves in the back are not that much great compared to placebo procedures or other procedures where they’re looking at doing something like it but they actually don’t they don’t touch the herniated disk, people get better in both conditions.

And there’s tons of more conservative treatments out there physical therapy treatments like what we do, that are progressing in their sophistication and how they address sciatica. We talk all about this throughout our channel here. So if you want to learn more about how to treat sciatica, what to do to correctly help it go down into the description below and find the playlist for all our sciatica video.

If you’re also suffering from a back problem in addition to your sciatica problem, then I highly recommend you check out our 20 day back health and wellness boost program because that program is focused on treating the root problem that causes a herniated disc and can set up a sciatica problem.

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