Sciatica

Sciatica occurs when the sciatic nerve — the longest nerve in the body — is compressed or irritated, causing pain, numbness, or tingling that radiates from the lower back through the hips and legs. It can result from a herniated disc, spinal misalignment, or muscle tightness in the piriformis. Auto accidents and sports injuries are common triggers. Chiropractic care relieves this pressure naturally without drugs or surgery.

Sciatica is a description more than a diagnosis. It means pain that follows the path of the sciatic nerve, which runs from the lower back through the buttock and down the back of the leg, and it usually shows up because that nerve is being crowded or irritated somewhere along the way. What's behind it varies. It might be a disc in the lower back leaning on a nerve. It might be narrowing of the space where the nerve leaves the spine. It might be the piriformis, a muscle deep in the buttock that sits right over the nerve in most people, doing more than its share. Those are different problems that sound alike when you describe them, and they don't settle with the same care, which is why the first thing worth doing is working out which one you have.

People also use the word for pain that isn't nerve pain at all. A fair amount of what comes into our Wells Branch office as sciatica turns out to be a hip or pelvis problem instead. The rough distinction is where the pain goes and what it feels like. Nerve pain tends to travel below the knee, sometimes all the way to the foot, and carries a burning or electric quality rather than a plain ache. It's usually on one side. It often gets worse the longer you sit. Hip-driven pain tends to stay in the groin, the outer hip, or the buttock, feels more like stiffness or a catch, and is worst getting up out of a chair. The two can happen together, one feeding the other, which is exactly why guessing from a symptom list online is unreliable.

A first visit starts with the story, because it usually narrows things before anyone touches anything: when it started, what you were doing, how far the pain travels, what makes it worse, and whether it's changing week to week. Then Dr. Shelly Hogan or Dr. Nicole Edwards looks at how your lower back and hips move, checks how the leg is working, and uses simple tests that load the nerve in specific ways to see what reproduces your pain. You'll get a plain explanation of what turned up before anything is decided, including if what we find is better handled by another kind of doctor. Nobody here is going to start a course of care first and figure it out later.

Where chiropractic care is a good fit, it usually combines adjustments aimed at the joints contributing to the irritation, hands-on work for the muscles around the hip and pelvis, and exercise specific to what we found rather than a generic stretch list. You'll also get guidance for the days in between, and it's usually less about resting and more about moving in the ranges that don't aggravate things, since long stretches of bed rest tend to leave a lower back stiffer rather than better. Timelines vary a great deal from person to person, so we re-check as we go instead of promising a number at the start. The office is at 3407 Wells Branch Pkwy, Suite 625, in Wells Branch, North Austin, with parking right at the door, and we see people from across North Austin, Wells Branch, and Pflugerville. Book online or call (512) 255-1777.