Hey, do you have sciatica problems? I’m going to cover the Top 8 Home Remedies For Sciatica Treatment and how to tell if they’re working for you.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh. I’m a physical therapist, and I own El Paso Manual Physical Therapy. Let me get into the Top 8 Remedies for you:

1.) Ice and/or Heat

Many people have used these methods over the years, and we get mixed results. Some people prefer heat, some people prefer ice, and some people prefer alternating the two for relief. There really is no right or wrong. Scientific research shows that there isn’t a clear winner in either case. The best thing for you to try out is 15-20 minutes of one, and then take it off for 15-20 minutes, and then reapply it and do that about 3 to 4 times over the course of 2 hours. Experiment with heat, experiment with ice, and experiment with alternating the two, and see if one of those options works best for you.

2.) Over the Counter Medications

Many people go to the pharmacy and find Tylenol, Advil, ibuprofen, Excedrin, or naproxen. There are a bunch of options out there. If you go to the pain relief section, I’m sure you’ll find tons of different varieties of pain medication. Just make sure to check with your physician and ask if you have any allergies or reactions, or if they would interact with any medications you may currently be taking, that wouldn’t be good for you. Some people get enough relief from the over the counter medications to be able to get to the next point.

3.) Supplements

The ones we are specifically referring to are those for nerves, bones, and joints. Some of the more common ones out there are St. John’s Wort, glucosamine, chondroitin, B vitamins, bromelain, and folic acid. Many of our clients have told us that this has helped them in the past, and we see mixed results. Some people feel that it improves them, and others say that it had no effect at all.

4.) Stretches and Exercises

Many clients that come and see us here have already been trying stretches and exercises that they may have found on YouTube or other places on the internet. Some get some relief, and some get worse. The reason for that is that there are a variety of causes for sciatica. Certain exercises can help some of those causes, but other exercises can actually severely worsen the situation. So just be careful with how you approach it. Pay attention to your body and listen to it! Pain is not always something that you should be pushing into if you’re stretching or trying to work out a sciatica problem.

5.) Pain Creams

There’s lots of gels and lotions out there that have pain medication mixed into them, and you simply rub it onto the painful area and get some temporary relief. Some of these are prescription strength pain medications so you can actually go to a doctor and ask for a prescription strength pain cream with prescription medication in it, and the pharmacist will actually make it for you as well. Some people find tremendous relief to where they can sleep at night if their sciatica has been keeping them up.

6.) Braces and Sleeves

Some people wear back braces because they have back pain in addition to the sciatica, and some people find that the support of a knee brace gives them relief as well. There are special sciatica braces and sleeves out there. Some are infused with copper. Some have magnets in them. Many people find that that can provide them some relief as well.

7.) TENS units

Another name for this is electrical stimulation. You can go to the pharmacy and buy a machine that has sticky pads hooked up with wires to a box. It’s a battery operated box and you put those sticky pads around the painful area. The box will have a knob that you can turn up the intensity of very small electrical shocks that go through the pads, and at the lowest settings you’ll feel a bit of vibration, maybe a tickle, and as you turn it up higher it may be intense enough to make your muscle in the area contract and squeeze. Follow the instructions on the TENS unit or the box that you got so that you don’t overdo it and you don’t turn up the intensity too much. Also, be careful if you’ve got a pacemaker or other things that might be affected by the electricity, but people that use this find that it can give them temporary relief from sciatica as well.

The final home remedy….

8.) Massages

Now, you might leave your home for this. You might go to see a professional massage therapist, and that type of individual can rub out stiff muscles and loosen up tight areas, but some people also do massages at home. They’ll use a hard ball like a tennis ball, a racquet ball, a lacrosse ball, or there’s also rolling pin devices. Some people will use a literal rolling pin, and others will use a special stretch-out, self-massage tool to roll out the area that’s tight. There’s also vibrating massage tools, the ones that vibrate really fast. You could put that on the area that hurts and self massage with a vibrating tool. These self massage tools are very commonly used home remedies and can provide some temporary relief.

So those are the Top 8 Home Remedies that people use to treat sciatica.

Now, let me now tell you the Top 3 Ways To Tell If They’re Working For You.

1.) Consistent Improvement Day to Day

As you begin to try these home remedies, you should feel like you’re getting a little better each day, and eventually the problem goes away.

2.) Better Movement and Better Sleep

Sciatica affects people differently. Some people have a lot of pain when they first go to stand up and begin to walk. That’s when they feel their sciatica problem. Others, when they first get up in the morning. Some, don’t feel it until they’ve been walking for a while. They feel their sciatica problem come on when walking, and others don’t have as much trouble with that; they have more trouble falling asleep at night. They can’t get comfortable, or they wake up in the middle of the night because of their sciatica problem. You should find relief in moving better and being able to sleep better if your home remedies are working for you.

3.) Consistent Sciatica Relief For a Month or More

These home remedies tend to only give temporary relief, but if your bout of sciatica wasn’t that severe then it should go away and not come back for more than a month. But if you find that it keeps coming back after a few weeks or less, then these home remedies are not effective for you. And if you’re one of these unlucky people that have not had relief using these home remedies and you can tell your sciatica problem is not improving (you’re not moving better, you’re not sleeping better, and this problem just doesn’t go away), and it’s been more than a month with the sciatica problem, then I’ve got special news for you: Hope is not lost! You’re likely just 2 or 3 components away from solving this sciatica problem.Sciatica is usually caused by a combination of problems that come together at the same time. Addressing each of those problems is what will resolve the sciatica issue for the long-term. If you’ve had some relief with the home remedies, then you’ve addressed 1 or 2 of those components, but there’s a remaining other one that you need to get resolved so that you can have complete resolution and get back to 100% and be your normal self again. So it’s likely time that you see a specialist to help guide you through this sciatica problem.

Here at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, we specialize in helping people with sciatica get healthy, remain active and mobile while avoiding surgery, injections, and pain medications. Many times when people come in to see us at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, they’ve already had a surgical consultation for their sciatica problem, they’ve had an MRI prior to that, and x-rays as well, and they’re afraid, worried, and hopeless, that they’re going to have to do something severe and extreme to treat this problem.

I’m here to tell you that we specialize in helping people treat this non-surgically, and we help them get off of pain medications and avoid injections completely.

If you think that we might be able to help you out with your sciatica problem, please call us at 915-503-1314 and ask about getting a free Discovery Visit. At the Discovery Visit, we’ll look at the root of the problem and figure out what components are missing to treat your sciatica. We’ll discuss what to do and what not to do and what treatment will look like specifically for your sciatica problem.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, I completely understand. It can be very confusing with how to treat your sciatica problem and which specialist to see, and that’s okay. You have the option to still use us to get advice. I encourage you to ask for a free phone consultation with a specialist physical therapist. You can call the same number, 915-503-1314. One of our staff will answer, and if you tell them a bit about your problem, and that you want to do a phone consultation, we can set up a free 15 minute appointment over the phone to talk to a physical therapist about your sciatica problem.

If that is still a little much for you, you just don’t want to talk to a physical therapist yet, you don’t want an appointment with a physical therapist yet, I completely get you. We’ve got something for you, though. If you hit the button over on the side, you’ll see the image of the book there. I’ve written a special guide for sciatica problems. In this guide are the Top 10 Ways To End Annoying Sciatica right now at home.

The guide is full of proven tips and advice, exercises that you can use, the stuff that we give our clients all the time. If I were a friend of yours and you were to bump into me somewhere and ask me about your sciatica problem, this is the kind of advice that you’d get from me. So if you just click that button there a form will pop up, just type in your name and info in there. We’ll instantly send you an eBook version of that. Or if you happen to be in the El Paso area and would like to have it mailed to you, call us at 915-503-1314, and we’ll be happy to mail you a copy of the eBook.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your sciatica problem addressed. Please don’t wait too long because as you wait it can worsen. Certain muscles will get weaker. Certain joints will be affected. Arthritis can get worse. It just worsens your whole body the longer that you allow it to be there. I wish you the best of luck in your health. Have a great day!