Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/738894
78 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k n o v e m b e r / d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 By Mark Liskey How Not to Make Sciatica Worse Three strategies when addressing a client's sciatica: 1. Determine the best body position on the table for the client. 2. Don't try to do too much. 3. Identify perpetuating factors. SCIATICA IS NASTY BUSINESS Sciatica—irritation of a lower-back spinal nerve—is nasty business. A person with sciatica may experience excruciating pain in the buttock and pain down the leg, along with numbness and muscular weakness. Pain can be constant or intermittent. Depending on where the nerve compression or irritation is occurring—L4, L5, S1, S2, or S3—symptoms can manifest in different places. For example, L4 nerve compression causes pain/numbness in the thigh. L5 nerve compression can extend pain/numbness to the foot and big toes. S1 nerve compression can affect the outer part of the foot. 1 The good news is that 90 percent of people recover from sciatica without surgery, 2 which means there's a significant chance we can help someone through sciatica if we're careful not to increase sciatic pain. I once made a sciatica sufferer's pain worse. After that experience, I would become nervous any time a client with sciatica walked through my door. But then, I injured my back, and, ironically, ended up in the same position as my client: the health practitioners I went to increased my sciatica pain. Eventually, I did get better, but I wondered what did we, as health practitioners, do wrong? Over the next decade, I talked to massage therapists, physical therapists, and chiropractors and tested out ways to keep acute sciatic pain from becoming worse during treatment.