You’ve been told you have sciatic nerve pain running down the back of your thigh into your calf muscle causing sciatica pain. This trapped nerve pain in your leg can be a continuous ache or pain that goes from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you eventually fall asleep, probably doped up on nerve pain medication. Today I want to delve into the world the sciatic nerve anatomy, why this anatomy can cause buttock pain and eventually sciatica pain down the leg.
Sciatic Nerve Pain Relief
Before looking into to some simple sciatic nerve pain relief treatment options you need to understand the sciatic nerve anatomy a bit better.
Sciatic Nerve Anatomy
The sciatic nerve is one of the major nerve’s in the lower limbs of our bodies.
The sciatic nerve is actually made up of 5 nerve roots exiting our spines. These are the L4-5-S1-2-3 nerve roots. These nerves come together like a rope inside our pelvis. The sciatic nerve then leaves the pelvis by exiting through the greater sciatic foramen.
At this point you can get a sciatic nerve pain condition called piriformis syndrome. This is because the piriformis muscle in the buttocks can trap the sciatic nerve when the nerve either passes over, under or directly through the middle of the piriformis muscle.
Once the sciatic nerve leaves the buttocks it then runs down the back of the thigh (hamstring muscle) where the sciatic nerve then takes a major split to become the two major nerves in the shin and calf called the, common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve.
The common peroneal nerve and the tibial nerve then go to supply different parts of the calf muscle area and the foot.
An interesting fact is that when the sciatic nerve is injured it is the peroneal side of the nerve that is 6 times more likely to be injured.
Sciatic Nerve Anatomy Video
I found this video of a cadaver dissection showing the the sciatic nerve exiting all the bum muscles like the gluteals.
Sciatic Nerve Pain Symptoms
So now you know more about the anatomy of the sciatic nerve from where the nerve starts and travels. You’ll want to maybe hear what others say who have sciatica leg pain symptoms:
- Deep, dull ache in my buttocks,
- Some lower back stiffness but the pain is worst going down the left leg,
- Numb feeling down my leg to my foot,
- Sore to sit on a chair for too long,
- Ache on the outside of my lower leg,
- Pins and needles in my feet,
- I find it hard to lift my foot when walking or pushing the clutch pedal when driving,
- My whole leg aches at night in bed,
- Stretching the leg doesn’t make the pain go away,
- I have a naggy ache in the back of my thigh.
These are maybe just some of the symptoms of a sciatic nerve pain that people may say to explain how they are feeling their sciatica. Remember sciatica pain is the symptom of having a trapped sciatic nerve.
Cause of Sciatic Nerve Pain
Maybe you can relate to some of the common symptoms people with sciatica say above. Now you want to know what caused the sciatic nerve to get pinched and become sore.
Here are the two common causes of sciatic nerve pain:
- The Lumbar Disc – You have discs between your vertebrae bones in your lower back (lumbar spine). These low back discs can degenerate. When they degenerate you can get degenerative disc disease, disc bulge or disc herniation. This cause of sciatic nerve pain happens at the spine trapping one of the 5 nerve roots leaving the spinal cord and not the entire nerve. The pain will follow the motor and sensory distribution of that particular nerve root. The most common trapped sciatic nerve roots are the L5 and S1 nerves followed by the L4 nerve. This is the case when you get an lower back MRI scan saying you have a L4-5 or L5-S1 disc herniation pinching the left L5 or S1 nerve.
- Piriformis Syndrome – The piriformis muscle has a very close relationship to where the sciatic nerve travels. Any trauma to this muscle or strain to the piriformis muscle can irritate the nearby sciatic nerve. Read more about piriformis syndrome here.
- Wallet Sciatica,
- Pregnancy,
- Hip fracture,
- Blunt force trauma,
- Misplaced injection in the bum cheek,
- Mass in the pelvis,
- Diabetic neuropathy.
How to Treat Sciatic Nerve Pain
So you have a better idea of the sciatic nerve anatomy, symptoms of sciatica and causes of sciatic nerve pain. What are some home treatment options left for you to consider how to treat sciatic nerve pain.
- First find the Cause – this is important because if you don’t know what is causing the sciatica pain in the first place you might be trying the wrong sciatic nerve pain relief treatment option. For example if it is a diabetes nerve damage cause exercise is not going to give you the results you wanted. Thankfully most of the time the pain is not a more severe cause like a diabetic neuropathy. But do get an opinion from your doctor.
- Sciatica Exercises – using movement as medicine for your body helps a lot of people. Doing sciatic nerve exercises or sciatic nerve stretches can help the healing process. Some of my personal favourite sciatica stretches are the figure of four piriformis stretch, slump test, hip hinge and calf muscle stretches. Then to strengthen the area I like to do just left or right bum muscle squeezes, bridge lifts on my back and co-contraction of my abdominal muscles.
- Hot and Cold Packs – using heat or cold therapy can be quite relieving for the muscle pain that comes with a sciatic nerve pain. Applying a cold pack to the buttocks or spine can act as a pain killer and as a natural anti-inflammatory. The heat will attract more blood flow to the muscle and can make a tight muscle more elastic and relaxed like a hot bath, hot water bottle or a microwaveable wheat bag.
- Rest Positions – you can read and see more about how to adopt the 90-90 position to take the pressure off the disc in your lower back in the trapped nerve in leg article.
- Pain Relief Gel – for a mild case of sciatica pain rubbing a pain relief gel in the sore areas can be quite soothing for some people. An example of would be Biofreeze pain relieving gel. There are many others on the market from the natural to the pharmaceutical rub on anti-inflammatories. It can be more the action of gentle rubbing that helps to calm pain signals reaching your brain using something called the pain gate theory.
- Inversion Therapy – using an inversion table some people have gotten relief from a disc herniation. There was a small study into this at Newcastle University. This can be done at home using one of the home inversion tables.
Just for fun here are some common misspellings of the word sciatic – syatic, siatic, cyatic & scatia.