Treat Sciatica

Doctors treat sciatica in their own ways. You can try to treat the symptoms at home, but it may come to the point where you will need to go a step further. Sometimes, the pain can get to the point that nothing but medication and surgery are helpful. When contacting the doctor, you need to be as honest as you can be about what you are experiencing. If at any time, you are taking any medications or other treatments from your doctor and are having problems, contact them immediately. Never take more medication than is prescribed to you or instructed on the label of over the counter medicines.

Relief Comes In All Forms

There are some over the counter and prescription medications you can take to treat sciatica. The easiest ones are ibuprofen and acetaminophen. They will help to relieve swelling and pain respectively. Aspirin is also an effect medication for this type of pain. Problems can occur when taking these medicines that may include bleeding from the stomach, ulcers, and damage to the organs if not taken correctly. If these do not begin to help your pain within a month or you are having an increase in the pain, your doctor may give you prescription medications to try. The prescription medications that treat sciatica consist of anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxers. Antidepressant drugs and ant seizure medication will also help. These drugs stop the pain messages from making their way to your brain. They also increase the endorphins in the body that kill pain.

Depending on the cause of your sciatica, the doctor may decide to have you complete some physical therapy program designed to give you the strength to reduce problems in the future. Physical therapy can be started once the majority of the pain is lower than it was. Rehabilitation will guide you into what is the correct posture and how to give your back the strong muscles it needs. The physical therapy will need to begin as early as is possible under your individual circumstances. Once you are finished with the therapy, you need to make the exercises learned a daily habit.

The Last Choice

When all the above items fail to help your problem. Surgery may be the last option to treat sciatica. At this point, the sciatica nerve may be causing you incontinence or other bladder problems. The pain may be so bad that there are no signs of relief ahead. The sciatica surgery can be performed with a small cut and the use of a microscope. The idea is to remove whatever disc portions are causing the nerve irritation. With the surgery, you will have a fifty-fifty chance of reduced pain. Problems due to the surgery include infections, nerve and spinal injuries, scars, and all risks that come with anesthesia use. Be prepared to have a good result from the surgery but, it is necessary to tell you, surgery to treat sciatica may not last long.