sciatica nerve issue

randidiane

randidiane

Cathlete
Does anyone have trouble doing certain exercises like abs, dead lifts even stretches with this.? is there any modifications with this? does this pain ever go away:(? it makes working out difficult even picking up a weight I have to put all my weight on just one side of my body to pick it up
 
I've had sciatica from time to time and at a couple of points, for extended periods of 3+ months where I cannot even really stand. It's a nuisance and disabling that's for sure. : ( Very sorry to hear you are having to go through this.
For the past few years, I'm having chronic psoas (on the other side) pain with some other hip & back issues. I won't get into all that.
Have you tried any myofascial release work either with a bodyworker/massage therapist or on your own with balls like soft ones (like elaine petrone) or lacrosse balls? Lacrosse ones of course are hard, but I find sometimes that is all that is gonna get in there and release it. I use them against the wall to get into that piriformis area and gluteus medius which will help (at least short term) to alleviate sciatica usually.
Have you seen a doctor or a physical therapist? Whereas most uncomplicated sciatica is a hip/glute issue, with some folks it is actually orginating from the lumbar and even sometimes the thoracic spine or it can even be uterine in nature (fibroids etc.),so it is worth it to find exactly where yours is orginating from. I don't mean to go all Dr. internets or anything and scare you, but I suppose I have had so many issues of this nature myself and I have seen so many women,especially, just go on and ignore it, that I don't want anyone else having to go through any long term pain.

For me, I actually find deadlifts (straight legged) helps, but everyone is different. I cannot do many reps of step ups or step work though. And this might sound strange, but for me, I found I was overstretching some muscles which was having the opposite effect of what my body needed. And what I mean by overstretching, is just stretching too far too fast, rather than going with the "pace" of what the muscle was naturally allowing me to do. I think that's particularly important for hamstrings. They are tricky muscles!!
 
my pain is right above my left butt cheek..it hurts more days then others. .my Dr told me it was my sciatic nerve gave me muscle relaxers and high dose of ib profin
 
Hi,

Sorry You are experiencing this pain. As Elsie advise. Try to found out the root and possibly get
some therapeutical exercises. I can recall a cathlete having pain while deadlifting, keep at it and ended
up no longer having any. I am not implying it is your case. I just wanted to point it out.

It is a shame she is no longer active on here but she was a friendly and helpful lady posting motivational
and encouraging advises. Private message me if you want to look up her posts. I will send you details.

All the very best:),
 
it didn't really help much..I'll try some of those lacrosse balls..any pulling of my lower back muscle like rounding my back when stretching leaning foward stretch..it's bending exercise is uncomfortable..I'm an advanced exerciser and 35 I feel like I can't go to my potential. .I've done cathe since I was 23 ..but I did stop working out for 2 years..got really out of shape but that's when it started hurting..
 
You are describing my pain to the T!

Through MRI I have discovered the cause is a herniated disc at L5 S1, and a bulged disc at L4 L5.
I have been dealing with pain in my left glute for a year. I also have pain down the back of the leg to the knee. Then it jumps to my ankle/calf.
Back in the Fall I had a series of cortisone shots. They took the pain away. But as soon as I returned to working out, the pain returned.
I now avoid anything that bends the body forward. It sucks.
I am at my worst upon waking. As long as I stay upright and moving, it is tolerable. Being sedentary is the worst for me.

I don't have any miracle cure for you. But I highly recommend listening to your body. If you can afford it, I would get an MRI.

I feel your pain.
 
Hi,



Randidiane: I would be very careful with weight workouts. It was deadlifts that caused my injury and the herniated disk. I hope you are able to find some relief. Agree with Gratefudog, get an MRI. That is the only way you can see if there is any disk injury.

Gratefuldog: I had the same as you; a herniated disc L5 S1. Same type of pain but mine never let up, nothing helped, I even tried an epidural that lasted a whopping 2 hours before the pain was back. I did 2 months of PT, that didn't help. After 10 months I begged my Dr to see a surgeon. I had a 30 minute out -patient microdiscectomy and have been pain free since. That was in 2001.

.
 
Yeah, if it consistently hurts you to bend down, sounds like a spinal issue to me, but just to echoe - yeah, going to the clinic and asking the doctor to further investigate with xray etc. seems the next step. (Not sure whereabouts you are, here in Canada it requires a lot of waiting around for available openings) I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ibuprofen will not do much for issues that get into nerve pain. : ( Sure, it will reduce inflammation, but that is the limit I think.
I know how you must feel to have continued to work this long to get to your level of fitness and now feel unable (or in pain) to continue. I felt gross when I was down for almost two years with physical problems - it definitely effects us emotionally as well. But there ARE other ways to work those muscles. Once you get to the root of the issues, going home with prescriptive exercises from a physical therapist will definitely help and give you more hope I think.
When my hip pain is unbearable at night, or I find I am awaking with worst pain, I like to sleep with 1. a low loft pillow under my knees (too high will aggravate lumbar spine) and 2. a body pillow down the whole side that is hurting. Keeping the hip, leg and foot elevated seems to help me out. I managed to get this great memory gel foam body pillow on overstock.com and honestly, it has been really good to me. I hope the ball massage helps as well. It has saved me a lot of money with massage therapists. That gets so, so costly. I found though that at first the pain was so congested and had been there so deeply, for so long that I would get light headed and very tired upon release - so take it easy at first.
Take care and update!!

Check out this guy's videos on gluteus medius release etc ....see what you think
youtube . com
" user/functionalpatterns/playlists "
 
I had pain above my left butt cheek too. It ended up being a herniated disc (L5/S1). The pain only went away after microdiscectomy surgery. That was a little over a year ago. I had trouble doing pretty much all weight lifting exercises. Walking was the best exercise for me. Like gratefuldog, being sedentary made things worse for me. I agree with everyone who has recommended seeing a physical therapist and/or doctor.
 
Foxstar, are you able to lift weights again, and workout to the same capacity as before? How long was your recovery?
Any pain at all now?
 
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It was about 6 weeks after surgery before I could start physical therapy. Until then I was instructed to walk daily (slowly building up from 5-10 minutes a day). They wanted me to get up and walk the day after surgery. It was probably about 3 1/2 months after surgery when I was given the go ahead to start lifting weights again. I still try to avoid high impact moves, or at least limit them. I know if I've had too much impact because I get numbness/tingling in my toes. The numbness/tingling goes away as soon as I'm done working out though. I started the 6 1/2 month STS rotation about 6 months after surgery. I substituted other leg workouts for the meso 3 legs because I didn't dare to do any plyo moves or put much weight on my back. My main issue after surgery was the numbness/tingling in my toes. That took a long time to resolve (and still flares up with impact).
 
Hi,

The Dr made me take off 4 weeks from work, although I could have gone back after 2 weeks with no problems. At that time I was told to go ahead and do walking etc. I did not need PT. It was about 8 weeks before I was giving the ok to do any weight work, and that was to be done with very light weights and carefully. I eliminated deadlifts from any weight routine for a while.

I am able to do any lifting now, no pain returned. The surgery was to remove the small part of the disk that was ruptured and hitting the nerve. Once that was gone, the pain was gone. The PT I had before surgery was to see if certain exercises could "move" the nerve so that it was not hit by the bulge. It did not work at all. I was so frustrated by it. Couldn't wait for the surgery.

The first step it to get an MRI. X-rays did not show a bulge when I had them but the MRI did.

Take care,
 
Thank you both for your input.

It has been a year since the discovery of the discs. My pain fluctuates from day to day. A year ago the pain was only in my glute. Today it is across my entire low back (SI joints), and down my leg. The leg pain varies. Some times it is there, sometimes it is not. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to my pain.
I had a bad outcome with a knee surgery a few years ago. So I am VERY reluctant to have back surgery. Scared to death actually. However, I can't see myself living with pain like this. It certainly is taking a toll on me mentally.

It is good to hear that you are both back to your Cathe workouts. I am happy for you both.

Thanks again for sharing your stories.
Sorry to hijack this thread!
 
ISA40: did you have the micro surgery? I got up and walked out of the hospital, did not even use any of the pain meds they sent me home with. A big difference between that type of surgery and the more invasive one.
 
Deb, I did have the micro surgery. I still needed pain meds though. I had no problems walking afterward because I just wanted to go home! I had mine in an outpatient surgical center (not associated with a hospital) in a suburb of Minneapolis. I took a couple of weeks off of work, and then went back to partial days. I have a sedentary desk job I do from home though. I couldn't sit for very long because the swelling would cause significant discomfort in my lower back. I didn't need PT, but I wanted it because I didn't feel like I got enough direction from the medical staff about how to go forward safely with exercise. I still don't deadlift as much weight as I could because it makes me too nervous.

I had the same type of PT as Deb before surgery and it was not successful. It works for some people I guess, but I waited too long, and I had a rather large herniation. The residual nerve issues I have are likely from waiting too long to have surgery, which was mostly due to the amount of time it took me to get an accurate diagnosis. I still consider it a success though. I'm more mobile now than I had been in years.

My pain fluctuated a lot as well, gratefuldog. And I was reluctant to have surgery. I cried the entire way to the surgical center because I thought I wouldn't make it out alive, or they would accidentally mess up my nerve more and cause paralysis. Those are both actual risks, but statistically very unlikely. I think I was more worried because it wasn't done in a hospital. I've had 2 laparoscopic abdominal surgeries, and the recovery from this surgery was significantly less painful than the other surgeries.
 
fox2star said:
The first step it to get an MRI. X-rays did not show a bulge when I had them but the MRI did.
Click to expand...
This is so true. One of the reasons it took me so long to get accurately diagnosed was because I had an X-ray but no MRI for a while. An X-ray will show that there is less space between the vertebrae, but it doesn't tell you why there is less space there. You can't see the discs, just the bone. So I was told I had degenerated discs and was given conservative treatments for that.
 
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