My Story of Lower Back Pain and Sciatica Causes, Treatment and Excersises to Relieve Back Pain
Welcome to my website, thanks for stopping by and while you’re here let me update you on the world of Liam.
Finally, finally I went to see that much hyped movie – District 9 on 12th Oct. I was almost going to wait for it to come out on DVD but can now say how glad I am I got the big screen experience…..did I like it? Answer is NO……I loved it.
Everybody I had spoken to who had seen it was saying it was only so-so which only goes to prove that we all have different tastes and expectations of our movies. If you had gone and hoped it was going to be something like Independence Day with Will Smith then you would have been sorely disappointed.
For me the way the movie was put together to get you believing in and empathising with the characters was a stroke of genius and the special effects blew me away given the $30 million budget. The only downside I can see is that there seems very little scope for a sequel, which is high praise indeed.
Other news of note is the fact that only six weeks ago I could not have even sat through this movie without a high degree of discomfort. Why?….because I was in the grip of a delightful condition called Sciatica. I had a mild episode of this about a year and a half ago when I drove non-stop for two hours with a packed wallet (packed with junk not money) in my back pocket.
This irritated a muscle in my posterior called the Piriformis muscle which then squeezed my Sciatic nerve. The end result was that it felt as if someone was sticking a knife deep into my right buttock. The upside is that the pain eased away within a week to 10 days so I thought no more of it and just started carrying my wallet in my front pocket.
Everything was fine till the end of June 2009 when I pushed myself too hard in the gym and then compounded that by spending four hours on my hands and knees giving the block drive in front of the house the cleaning of its life. An hour after that I still felt fine if a little tired but all that was about to change.
I was sitting down relaxing, started to get up and at the same time twisted to one side to pick something up and the combination of the two was enough to trigger a fantastic shooting pain in my lower back that I could almost immediately feel spreading down my right leg.
Agonising is an understatement. 
So I did all the usual, took some painkillers and rested up for a while but went to work the next day in some pain and limping a little, the day after that was worse and I realised then that this was not going to be as quickfixing as last time.
The back pain was very mild, all the pain was in my right leg. My right thigh felt like it was cramping, my right buttock had the stabbing pain again and if I stood up for more than 10 seconds my right calf felt like someone had lit a fire inside it. It was virtually impossible to get comfortable and I found the only thing that worked was curling up in a foetal position lying on my left side and although I was still in pain it was the best I could do.
I went to see a chiropractor who poked and prodded me and took some X-rays. Barely survived a weekend and saw my doctor first thing Monday. She soon realised the pain I was in and prescribed me Codeine and anti-inflammatories.
My abiding memory of that visit was that my wife had to drive me and as I shuffled in to the waiting room all stooped over and groaning I saw an elderly male who looked to be in his eighties, over double my age, walking in the exact same manner and that was scary.
If I didn’t get it sorted I was going to be old way before my time. The doctor gave me a week of work which I spent most of in bed.That evening I went back to the chiropractor and he did a session with me where he pulled and twisted me and caused a loud cracking sound to emanate from my lower spine and after that I could stand up straighter although still having a lot of pain in my right leg.
As the pain was not diminishing during my week of and to the contrary was getting worse I spoke to my doctor again and she prescribed me muscle relaxants which did help somewhat.
A session of accupuncture seemed only to provide some very temporary relief and two more expensive sessions of chiropracty where the practitioner gave me exactly 10 minutes of his time each visit seem to make no difference so I cancelled any further appointments.
When the Chiropractor explained the condition of my spine and how many more sessions I needed he also referred to the X-rays of my spine that showed one hip to be higher than the other and my spine to be too straight in the lower back area compared to the curvature of a normal spine.
I then pointed out to him that when he took those X-rays I was unable to put much weight on one leg which explained why one hip was higher than the other and the reason my spine was the wrong shape was because when he took that X-ray I was stooped over and unable to stand up straight, which was something I was now able to do.
I now totally regret getting those X-rays as I believe their only function was as a method for the chiropractor to convince me to continue to pay him for expensive treatments and I exposed myself to radiation unnecessarily.
My way back to normality lay in many sessions of physiotherapy and an acceptance that I had to exercise the affected area and strengthen up my core muscles.
I am about 80% back to full fitness as I have still, almost four months later not got all the strength back in my right leg and have numb areas on my right heel and along the outside of my right foot.
The two smallest toes on that foot are numb and there is reduced feeling along the back of my right thigh. An MRI scan two weeks ago showed that my disc is still bulging out against the Sciatic nerve so if I was still in pain or very weak in that leg they would now be talking about taking me down the route of surgery.
That’s all you don’t need, some stranger cutting you open and doing stuff near your spinal cord and I have spoken to people who have had it done with mixed results, none of which were to my way of thinking 100% successful. So all things being equal this is an option of last resort.
I will hopefully continued mending as I am and am now aware that some of the numbness may never go as if the nerve gets too badly damaged it cannot fully repair itself. Each week my leg gets stronger so wish me luck and I will keep doing my stretches and exercises.
iIf you are suffering from lower back pain or sciatic nerve pain I recommed you to read Sciatica Leg Pain and Lower Back Pain Exercises Part One and Part Two . These regualr exercises have helped me to get back my current health and fitness. I learned these exercises from professional physiotherapiests and videos that I purchsed to lose my back pain and sicatic nerve pain .
I will update with my progress and other bits and bobs about the exciting adventure that is my life a bit more than I have done so far……so watch this space. Any comments are welcome.
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