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Yoga Treatments for Sciatic Nerve Pain
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Related Sections Sciatica Treatment - reviews the use of trigger point therapy and acupressure for sciatic pain. |
After my episodes of acute pain were over from sciatica treatment through trigger point therapy and acupressure, I found yoga to be very helpful in getting my leg and backside back to normal. However, this was only after my sciatic nerve had calmed down some, and even then I had to be very careful of which poses to do. It took a lot of trial and error on my part to determine which poses helped and which poses made me worse. For me, a general yoga class just made my pain worse because many of the poses, like Downward Facing Dog, just put too much pressure on my already-irritated nerves.
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"It should encourage you to know that case after case of disabling sciatica improved when individualized exercise therapy was used after acute pain had eased." Arthur C. Klein and Dava Sobel, writing in Backache Relief: Back Pain Sufferers Nationwide Rate and Describe More Than 100 Successful Healing Methods |
I found the book Back Care Basics helpful because it has specific information on poses for sciatica, as well as back pain in general. If you have sciatica along with scoliosis like I did, then this book may be especially useful as it has chapters on both conditions. The author is a medical doctor who is also a yoga instructor, so she has a good grasp of anatomy issues as well as corrective yoga poses for many common orthopedic ailments related to back and neck pain.
Recommended Book:
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According to Dr. Schatz, sciatica has two main causes: 1) "a bulging or herniated lower lumber intervertebral disc that compresses one of the nerve roots before it joins the sciatic nerve"; or 2) piriformis syndrome, when the piriformus muscle compresses and irritates that sciatic nerve. For case 1, herniated or bulging discs, she recommends her "home base" and "moving on" poses in chapters 6 & 7 of her book, although for severe conditions she notes that surgery may be required.
I had case 2, the tight piriformis muscles. For this cause of sciatica the author recommends gentle stretching of the piriformis muscle. Her book includes instructions for a piriformis stretch, which I did find helpful. The poses I found from her book to be especially helpful for sciatica were:
- Piriformis Stretch
- Crocodile Twist
- Supine Knee to Chest (variation 1)
- Supine Cobbler's Pose
- Knee to Chest (except I didn't extend the other leg as shown in her book, that seemed to hurt more than help. I just kept the outstretched leg flat on the ground. It also helped to move the knee of the bent leg around in little circles.)
- The Passive Back Arch
Poses that aggravated my pain from this book were ones that stretched my leg out straight, especially when bending forward. Most of the standing poses were not good for me when I was in severe sciatic pain. Normally for many back related issues I found the One Leg Up, One Leg Down in the Back Care basics to be good, except for sciatic pain. Once my sciatic pain was under control, I could do this pose again with no problem, but it was best to avoid it when my leg had nerve pain shooting down its length.
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"Ask the average doctor how to treat sciatica, and you will probably get a prescription drug and be told to rest. What you won't get, usually, is relief from sciatica." "The pill and surgery approach was unconstructive and frustrating for most survey participants with sciatica. Moreover, it caused people who were already in great pain to feel helpless and demoralized" Arthur C. Klein and Dava Sobel, writing in Backache Relief: Back Pain Sufferers Nationwide Rate and Describe More Than 100 Successful Healing Methods |
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Related Sections Sciatica Treatment - reviews the use of trigger point therapy and acupressure for sciatic pain.
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Related Pages:.
Natural Therapies - overview of holistic therapy methods for sciatic nerve pain.
Stretches - a couple of illustrated, sample stretches for sciatica.
How Exercise Helped My Scoliosis
Scoliosis Exercises - Part I - Yoga and the Egoscue Method
Food for Thought -
The wise
for cure on exercise depend.
John Dryden, 1631 - 1701
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