Sciatica is the term used for what is known as “Sciatic Nerve Pain,” and sciatic nerve pain is, that excruciating pain you feel in the lower back that radiates downward through your buttock, down the back of your legs and sometimes all the way to your toes. There are a few different causes of sciatica, the good news, most are treatable without requiring surgical procedures. Before you can treat sciatica you need to understand what the sciatic nerve is and what it does, briefly, the sciatic nerve is the largest and longest nerve in the body. It starts at the lower part of the spinal cord extends out of the spinal column in several places, runs downward through the buttock and down the back of the legs all the way to the toes.

Symptoms of sciatica usually include the following, Stabbing pain in the lower back that radiates downward through the buttock and down the back of the legs, and if severe enough, all the way to the toes. It can also be felt as tingling, burning, electrical shock type sensation, numbing, weakness in the legs, and other sensations.

Sciatic nerve pain is caused by damage to the sciatic nerve or from pressure being place on the nerve by the surrounding muscles which occurs due to the muscles being damaged, causing them to swell thus, placing pressure on the sciatic nerve. The most common cause of sciatica or sciatic nerve pain is lifting heavy objects the wrong way, lifting with the back instead of with the legs. To avoid this type of sciatica use your legs for lifting and keep your back straight. If you consistently lift with your back, you can cause damage to the disc’s in your spinal column which can cause pinching of the sciatic nerve. The only way to repair a crushed disc is with surgical procedures which, can cause more damage than good.

There are self care things you can do to relieve the pain of sciatica, for instance, when you first experience sciatica don’t use heat even though it may make the back feel better and ease the pain (I did this for years not realizing) until you remove the heat then, the pains always seem worse. This happens because the nerve is inflamed and heat does not remove the inflammation instead, it adds to it so, use ice packs, that is what helps reduced the inflammation, which in turn, should ease some of the pain. Then there are exercises that can be done that will also help to relieve the pain, these exercises are basically stretching exercises that help to strengthen the muscles around the sciatic nerve and help to realign the vertebra and discs in the lower back.

I suffered from Sciatica for many years until I found Doctor Best's Sciatica Self Care this e-book gave me a lot of information that I did not know previously. With the help of this e-book and the help of Doctor Best I managed to get my sciatica under control and now that the pain is gone I use the exercises to keep it from returning. You can get a free copy of Sciatica Self Care by visiting my website Sciatica Pain Relief Resources and Information and you can get more information on sciatica at Doctor Bests website. ( There are eleven videos by Doctor Best on my site that explains more about sciatica.)