Can Sciatica Pain Be Cured?
Sciatica affects so many people and help is elusive. Patients suffering from sciatic pain often reject the constant use of pain medications simply due to the effects of not being totally functional and being alert. When only medications are offered as a "cure" the patient often chooses to endure the pain rather than take the meds. In patient parlance the stopping of meds, the return of sciatica pain, is not a "cure".
Of course if there is a physical issue such as impinged nerve, slipped lumbar disc, or degenerative disc then one needs to remove the cause of the radiating sciatic pain. Remove the cause and the pain is gone. That is a cure.
However in many situations the sciatica is simply too much stress on the leg with the pain radiating. The cause of the pain is the poor posture, often occurring due to some form of back pain, and the patient has accommodated the back pain by altering their gait. Very small shifts of weight, slight angle change of the SI joint, greatly affect stress to the legs. That additional stress, going on for long time periods, actually causes the sciatic leg pain.
If the posture is changed, gait back to normal, then often the sciatica pain is cured. The relief of the stress to the extremity is the cause of sciatic pain. Of course it's easy to talk about it unless you are the patient and have to walk the walk by modifying posture and gait. One of the best ways to literally cure the sciatic pain is to visit a physical therapist for proper instruction on gait and stress relief on the legs during ambulation.
The use of stretching will help, although the process of stretching is and can be painful to the patient. The use of Infrex on interferential mode while stretching will reduce the pain so greater range of motion is returned sooner and the sciatic pain stops.
The present best alternative is to do stretching exercises to maximum force, then apply heavy doses of electricity via the interferential tens machine, to rapidly increase muscle strength and promote blood flow in the muscles being stretched. The combination of exercise with interferential electrotherapy will return full flexion and extension. This rehab. process is called "functional restoration". The function being returned is ambulation without leg pain.
The use of the Infrex interferential tens machine, coupled with voluntary motion, actually stimulates more muscle fibers for each exercise session. The increased motor nerve firings increases overall muscle development. Rather than have only small motor nerves firing with volitional movements one has the smaller and larger motor fibers firing. This process accelerates range of motion as well as tissue repair. The interferential stimulation actually excites the larger diameter muscle nerves for twice the effect of simple exercises.
Interferential therapy, with volitional muscle exercising, not only cures sciatica but prevents future occurrences. Many patients later use interferential therapy at most once per month for 30 minutes to maintain muscle tone and prevent reoccurrence of sciatica pain. See video here for more information on interferential therapy.
