A common cause of low back and leg pain is a bulging or herniated disc in the lumbar area. Symptoms may include dull or sharp pain, leg weakness or tingling, or sciatica ?pain that shoots down your leg

Originally posted here:
Lumbar Herniated Disc

An injury or some traumatic occurrence, perhaps minor, can be the precipitating event which kicks the knee joint into a painful state. Even a small injury can cause the joint to swell and the knee can react in complex and negative ways to the presence of minor levels of fluid in the joint. Trauma causes the synovial lining to secrete synovial fluid and this is contained inside the capsule of the joint, continual movement irritating the joint by stretching of the capsule. A swollen knee is typically held at an angle of about thirty degrees as this is the most comfy, loose position for the joint.

Once the knee is held bent for a while this can develop into a flexion contracture, a small permanent bend in the joint. The part of the quadriceps muscle which performs the screwing home movement of the knee lock is then unable to perform its function and starts to atrophy. The weakness which develops in this muscle makes it gradually more difficult to straighten the knee in activity, adding to the abnormal stresses placed on the knee.

Chondromalacia patellae is a commonly diagnosed problem with the cartilage on the underside of the kneecap. Normally the kneecap sits lightly against the groove on the front of the femur and is only strongly pressed against it in loaded movements such as getting up from a chair or descending stairs. If the knee tightens and loses some of its accessory movements then the patella can become more tightly compressed against the femur. This can set up a frictional process between the two bony areas, particularly if there is bow leg or knock knee, where the tibia is rotated abnormally or where one leg is longer than the other.

The joint surface of the kneecap can develop increased irritability and this limits the willingness to keep a bent knee for any time, preferring to straighten it to reduce the force. As increased forces bear on the kneecap, the articular cartilage lining it changes and becomes lined and fluffy instead of hard and smooth. Further irritation is provided by increased swelling in response to the joint surface changes, with grooves developing in the cartilage as it worsens. Subluxation of the patella, where it moves out of its groove to some degree, can occur with sudden movements such as turning and twisting.

If the patella subluxes this is a sudden and extremely painful event which traumatises the surfaces of the joint and can result in considerable pain and swelling of the knee. The kneecap usually subluxes or dislocates to the outside and this stretches the tissues which support the knee on the inner side, making them weaker and allowing the abnormal patellar movements to occur more commonly. In severe cases the patella can dislocate repeatedly which can be disabling and various operations are used to improve matters. The tissues can be tightened up on the medial side, known as reefing, to attempt to hold the kneecap more over to the inside.

After an attempt at minor interventions has not been successful then the surgeon can progress to tibial tubercle transposition, the moving of the bony prominence on the upper shin bone towards the inner side of the knee. This brings the line of pull of the quadriceps muscles into a more inwards line and draws the kneecap in away from the side where the pressure is greatest. Investigation by arthroscopy can show an appearance of fissures and softened cartilage in worse cases of damage. Wasting of the quadriceps muscle can occur in response to the inflammation and pain of this process.

As the quadriceps muscle wastes and become weaker the knee is less and less well supported, and the patella cartilage damage makes particular activities painful such as descending slopes and stairs, which place higher forces through the patello-femoral joint. Going downhill involves the quadriceps controlling the movement as the muscle lengthens rather than the more obvious shortening mechanism we are more familiar with.

A surgeon can debride the back of the joint via arthroscopy, surgically cleaning up rough areas and debris, but results of this procedure are not predictable. Manual pressures or exercises to press the surfaces together in an attempt at smoothing them can be performed by physiotherapists but this is a therapeutic technique with little support from evidence.

Jonathan Blood Smyth, editor of the Physiotherapy Site, writes articles about Physiotherapy, back pain, orthopaedic conditions, neck pain, injury management and physiotherapists in Cambridge. Jonathan is a superintendant physiotherapist at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK.

The menisci (often called cartilages) and the main joint surfaces of the knee can be made more vulnerable to injury and damage if knee control is not good enough to prevent unplanned joint movements. Meniscal function is partly to control movement of the femoral condyles into particular paths, centring them on the upper shin bone plateau. Without the guiding help the large and strong condyles can catch the edges of the menisci as they roll across the tibial plateau and so cause tears or other damage to the menisci.

The types of damage pattern which can occur in the menisci vary and include the development of tears, splits and bites out of the edge. A “bucket handle tear” can develop if the condyle causes a circumferential split in the meniscus whilst the ends of the tear remain attached to the rest of the meniscus. An unplanned movement such as twisting and turning can damage a meniscus and dislodge a part of it into the joint as a loose body. This can move around inside the knee and jam between the surfaces of the joint, causing sharp pain and a giving way of the knee when it is weight bearing.

As the cartilage continues to erode it can guide the femoral condyles less and less, perhaps increasing the forces which are transmitted across from the femoral condyles to the tibial surface. As the surfaces suffer increased forces they can also degenerate, leading the osteoarthritic changes within the knee. Before modern arthroscopic management a common procedure was to remove the meniscus entirely if it was giving trouble, leading to osteoarthritic changes some years later. Any significant problem with a knee leads to wasting of the medial part of the quadriceps muscle and much effort is expended in strengthening this area.

The ranges of movement of the joint and normal accessory movements need to be restored for the medial quadriceps to respond to strengthening work. Knee extension needs to be full for the medial quadriceps to exert their full and functional force and the accessory movements contribute to the necessary play within the joint. If the full extension is not returned then the exercise to strengthen the muscles will likely be in vain. The development of modern arthroscopy techniques has allowed internal inspection of the joint and the ability to do the minimal intervention to achieve the required treatment goal.

Osteoarthritis is one of the commonest joint conditions in the world, affecting hundreds of millions of people and occurring almost universally to some degree in elderly people. A family history, meniscal surgery, joint trauma or ligament injury can all predispose the joint to later osteoarthritis. Damage to and stretching of either the medial or lateral ligaments can cause some sloppiness of the control of movement in the knee, causing increased forces to be generated across the joint and contribute towards articular surface breakdown. Shearing movements, causing a lateral stress as the joints are in contact, exert high forces on the surfaces.

The knee can start to develop a grating or clicking as it ages with small degrees of degeneration and is only painful if kept in one position for excessive periods. The joint capsule can become tighter if we do not perform the strong movements any longer which stress the joint to the ends of its ranges. This can increase joint compression which increases the stresses across the joint surfaces and make the joint more likely to be injured during stressful movements. As the process continues the cartilage wears down and the underlying bone, which normally has some elasticity, becomes denser and harder.

An arthritic knee can be enlarged, swollen, hot and painful with limited range of movement, crepitus on motion and a degree of disability. Pain and swelling can go through repeated cycles and gradually become worse as the joint deteriorates. Walking may be limited and the knee pain can disturb sleep due to the difficult in maintaining a position. As the inside of the joint can become very tender it does not tolerate pressure from another knee or the gapping pressure which can occur when we lie on our sides. A pillow between the knees is typically required.

Jonathan Blood Smyth is the Superintendent of Physiotherapists at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK. He writes articles about back pain, neck pain, and injury management. If you are looking for physiotherapists in Nottingham visit his website.

Sciatic Exercise doesn’t really sound like something you want to know about. You are in pain. How are you supposed to exercise? But really, though bed rest may be a very good idea when you are experiencing an acute sciatica flare up, when going on too long it’ll do you more harm than good (too long is more than a couple of days). It is best to get back to your regular routine as soon as you can (of course avoiding what got you here in the first place). When your pain lessens, start looking into the different possibilities for sciatica exercises, according to the cause of your sciatica pain. What may do one condition a world of good may seriously aggravate a different condition. For that very reason you should always consult a physician before getting started with your sciatica exercises, since you need to know when you can start exercising, with what frequency and what types of exercises would do you good.

Now that I’ve said that, I’d like to take a closer look at a certain kind of sciatic exercise that will most likely be one of the most beneficial treatments for your sciatica: warm water exercises. Though it is true that during an acute flare up of your sciatica cold should rather be applied instead of warmth, once the first pain has simmered down and the healing process has started warm water therapy is very beneficial in several ways.

Taking a warm bath helps you to relax, it increases circulation and helps to loose tightened muscles; it also helps speeding up the healing process. It returns mobility to you, since the warmth makes the muscles more pliable. It is a good idea to take a warm bath for a while before starting to exercise (don’t go too long, since your body might overheat).

Now, being nicely relaxed and all, you could try some water exercises. They are much easier to do than regular exercises, since being in the water will take most of the weight and pressure off your back, joints, ligaments, disks and muscles; it also lowers the pain associated with some of the exercises, especially in the beginning, when there is still some stiffness, and the fear of possible pain, which in itself can make you tense up.

Water density will make your muscles work harder than usual, but will take weight and pressure off the rest of your body. A good starting exercise to help reduce pain and muscle spasms could even be just walking or marching in the water.

Exercises in warm water and water in general are a great point to start out on exercises altogether, be it after a sciatica flare up or for some other cause of back pain. Exercises in warm water are some of the most beneficial exercises. You get the reduction of inflammation due to increased circulation on one hand and the strengthening of the muscles on the other hand that you will need to keep your spine and sciatic nerve in good shape.

After water exercises you will find a wide array of exercises available to you, that you can work towards bit by bit, but before you start to exercise altogether (now that you have talked to your back specialist and learned which exercises you can do), always start up with warming up for at least 5 minutes. That could be a short walk, or even walking in place. Even using an exercise bike will do the job.

When you start out you probably should stick with careful back stretching exercises and then step by step build into strength building exercises fro your abdomen and back. Then you can also widen your range to some low impact aerobic exercises. With a balanced array of all of these exercises you will work many different muscle groups, which will then help you to prevent future flare ups of sciatica.

To sum it up: Sciatica and exercises can’t be kept apart if your goal is pain relief and strengthening in the long run. Make sure to speak to a back specialist prior to starting your exercise routine or self-treating your causes and symptoms, just so you can be sure what you are able to and should and shouldn’t do.

Learn more about sciatic exercise. Stop by Christina Meier’s site where you can find out all about sciatic exercises and what they can do for you.

Small movements which allow a glide and a slide inside a joint are essential for the normal use of the joint but cannot be done in isolation, occurring with other movements. These are called accessory movements and their presence is vital to joint function, a reduction in available range or a pain problem resulting if they are lost or reduced. The hip is a deep joint with significant stability so the accessory movements are rather subtle, with the main one being compression and distraction, the pushing in to and pulling out of the ball from the socket.

The cycles of compression and relaxation which occur with weight bearing and gait are essential to the health and nutrition of cartilage. As the cartilage is compressed it gives to some extent even though it is quite dense and once this is released it reverts to normal shape, squeezing the fluid out of it under pressure and then sucking it back in as force is removed. This sets up a pumping action of fluid up from within the cartilage and underlying bone, providing an essential fluid replacement mechanism to keep cartilage healthy.

The typical mechanical stresses through the joints stimulate the production of new cartilage cells, with the on-off stresses being important to counter the high forces involved when we put our heels down in gait. Bigger movements in larger amplitudes may encourage cartilage growth whilst absence of stresses or sustained loads may impede synthesis of cartilage. Cartilage breakdown may be encouraged by high bodyweight, static loading for long periods or by reducing loads such as by use of a stick.

Resting a joint when it is painful is not a clearly positive strategy. Pain may be reduced when resting but the mechanisms which encourage regrowth of cartilage are not stimulated and the joint capsule may stiffen and reduce the available range of movement at the joint. This may increase the compressive forces in the joint and produce more pain. Whilst painful joints do need respect, in general arthritic joints are worse being still and better being kept moving about. The ability to achieve a rhythmical cycle of gait is very beneficial for the movements and the blood supply of the upper femoral structures.

The ligamentum teres, a band like structure running from the head of the femur to the socket, has blood vessels which may be affected by the cycle of gait which produces a effect of pumping fluid through. This may allow better blood supply to the head of the femur and keep the bone healthy. To maintain the density and normal composition of the bone in the upper femur it is important for this area to be subject to normal forces such as walking. Use of a walking aid or resting in bed can cause loss of bone density and mineralisation, with the bone becoming less flexible and less resistant to jars and strains.

Western individuals normally take advantage of only a small proportion of the large ranges of movement which the hip possesses. The repeated nature of walking only occurs in small ranges and we rarely go over 90 degrees flexion when we are sitting. As time goes on we push our hips less and less towards the ends of their movement, allowing loss of motion. Keeping the full ranges of movement available is beneficial to hips as is pushing them as far as they will go from time to time. In the east many people squat, even for ironing, and may have lower incidence of hip arthritis than western populations.

A lack of use in the end ranges of a joint can mean the joint capsule will exhibit some tightening and in this way increase the compressive forces suffered by the head. Extension of the hip can be particularly affected by a difference in leg length. The longer leg in standing will tend to bend slightly at the hip and knee to keep the head level for the eyes to function best. This compensation can lead to stiffness developing with some loss of hip and knee extension as the hip develops a fixed flexion deformity.

Jonathan Blood Smyth is the Superintendent of Physiotherapy at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK. He writes articles about back pain, neck pain, and injury management. If you are looking for physiotherapists in Bolton visit his website.

The mechanical connection between the legs and the mass of the trunk occurs at the hip joints with their large socket and ball. The hip socket or acetabulum is a deep rounded structure with a rim of cartilage which closely holds the head of the femur, the large ball structure at the top of the thigh bone. As befits a joint where large forces are applied, the hip is stable, deep and has strong stabilising features. To permit fluid movement under considerable bodily loads the hip surfaces are covered with articular cartilage which confers almost friction-free motion under these loads. This is essential to the hip and the thickest cartilage is where the greatest forces are applied.

Surrounding the head, socket and neck is the capsule of the hip joint which runs from the lip of the socket down over the head and neck to the base of the neck. It is a fibrous bag lined by synovial membrane which secretes the lubricating and nutritional fluid for the cartilage, and is strengthened by denser bands of tissue, the major hip ligaments. The hip is designed so that the femur can fit into the socket in the pelvis at an appropriate angle for weight bearing and exerting mechanical forces. The femur comes up to the hip area and then the neck turns inwards at an angle of 125 degrees to access the pelvic socket.

Inside the hip the bony anatomy of the supporting struts or trabeculae are also mechanically aligned along the lines of most force, responding to the requirements of bodily motion and bearing weight. The densest areas reinforce the parts suffering the highest stresses. If the hip copes with these stresses by developing strengthened areas it also has areas of less strength which can become relevant in older people as they fall and suffer fractured necks of femur across these areas. As the number of older people dying after this fracture is relatively high, this matter is of concern.

The hip is designed to perform locomotion of the body and to stand and manage the body weight through the legs. To perform these actions the hip joints have very strong muscles to stabilise them and move them and the body in some cases quickly and with force. The hip abductors, adductors and gluteal muscles are all major stabilisers and movers of the joint. The abductors play a large part in the sideways stability of the pelvis and the gluteals, the body’s most powerful muscles, move the body weight around.

The articular surfaces of the hip are subject to very high mechanical forces, much greater than the body weight in activities such as running, jumping and climbing stairs. To cope with this the articular cartilage is thick on the most exposed areas, although the nutritional supply to cartilage mostly relies on synovial fluid and some from the underlying bone. New cartilage is slowly formed from below as some is worn off at the top by activity, and the balance between these two actions is critical to the health of the joint.

The synovial membrane lines the capsule of the hip and performs the secretion of small amounts of synovial fluid. This fluid is not present in large amounts but is thought to lubricate the movements of the joint, help particles of wear be absorbed to prevent a grinding paste being developed and spread mechanical loads throughout the joint. If the joint is under great load, the synovial membrane can respond to the cyclical stresses by increasing its secretion rate to protect the joint and lubricate it during periods of high activity.

Any disturbance in the available movements of the hip will have consequences on its most important function, gait. An even stride length and balanced gait pattern is essential for normal daily function and to the health of the hip joints themselves. We have a typical and restricted pattern of joint movement when we walk but the movement which often becomes limited first is extension, the ability to take the leg behind as the other leg strides forward. At around 20 degrees there is much less hip extension that hip flexion, the ability to take the thigh towards the chest, which is about 130 degrees.

Jonathan Blood Smyth, editor of the Physiotherapy Site, writes articles about Physiotherapists, physiotherapy, Physiotherapists in Exeter, back pain, orthopaedic conditions, neck pain and injury management. Jonathan is a superintendant physiotherapist at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK.

When you are in dealing with problems in your lower back or legs, you will search far and wide for treatment for sciatic nerve pain. The simple things in life are no longer simple. Wherever you go and whatever you try to do, the pain is there. This pain starts in the lower back and can go all the way down to your feet. This is pain that you can not ignore. It is pain that will hit you whether you are trying to enjoy an activity or whether you are just sitting. Escaping this pain is not impossible. With proper care you can get the relief that you desperately seek.

Because of the constant irritation of sciatic pain, people look far and wide for cures. They can try acupuncture, medication, chants (it happens). But who can blame them? The pain can take control of ones life, limiting the time you get for the things that you enjoy. If you enjoy sports, you will be limited in how much you can partake. Even those activities that involve limited movement, or should I say, especially those activities that involve limited movement can be extremely painful. You need to get treatment for sciatic nerve pain to get back your life.

To avoid sciatica pain, you should stay ahead of the game. A sciatica nerve exercise plan will not only relieve pain, it will help you avoid problems to begin with. Stretching your back and leg muscles should keep your sciatic nerves from pain. Low impact exercises that do not put any stress on your back should help strengthen your back muscles.

I would not recommend any treatment that involves too much aggressive exercise. If you have sciatic nerve pain, you will not want to make it worse by doing counterproductive work. Sciatic pain is quite often caused by herniated disks. You would never want to do any exercises that are going to make that situation worse. If you think you still want to try this type of exercise, you will need check with a professional first to see if you are ready. Keep your exercise program in mind when you are getting treatment for sciatic nerve pain.

I have seen people in their twenties complain about back pain. I have seen people in their sixties who jump out of bed, ready to take on the world every day. The difference: how they take care of themselves. Back pain is real and can be debilitating. Doing the right exercises for sciatica can make that difference possible.

We grow up with the medical model of injury and disease in our heads, its our way of understanding what happens to us. When a pain or other problem occurs, the doctor investigates and pins down the fault to a particular organ or body system, targeting the treatment to improve the malfunctioning of the part. The problem then goes away or is managed such as healing in a fracture, recovery from pneumonia after antibiotics and replacing an arthritic joint. However, there is a group of pain conditions which do not fit well into this system and are not widely recognised or treated.

If we sprain an ankle the pain signals rush up the nerve towards the spinal cord and cross over onto the next relay of nerves up to the brain. This next relay of nerves is made highly sensitive by the incoming pain and they start to react more and more strongly to the incoming barrage, amplifying the pain we experience in our mind. This will settle down as the injury heals and the system resets to normal, however this does not always occur or a pain can start without any incoming tissue pain at all. This is a pain syndrome, a collection of painful and other symptoms which do not appear to have an underlying pathology.

Typical pain syndromes are complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), chronic widespread pain (CWP) and fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). CRPS occurs after minor or moderate injury to a limb such as the ankle or wrist and the underlying reasons are not well understood. In the wrist the person may be in plaster for a few weeks for a minor fracture or sprain but complains of high levels of pain and has difficulty keeping the fingers moving. The fingers are stiff and swollen and moving them elicits significant pain, at which stage immobilisation is removed if possible to allow rehabilitation.

Widespread pain syndromes are very challenging problems for the patient and are very difficult to treat with any success. CWP shows trigger point hypersensitivity in the bellies of the muscles, specific points which are very painful to palpate and refer pain down to structures nearby. Osteopathy treatment consists of an exercise programme, stretching, acupressure, postural correction advice and acupuncture. Fibromyalgia has the typical symptoms of CWP with the addition of difficulties concentrating, IBS, severe fatigue, unrestored sleep, poor sleep, hypersensitivity to pressure and an over-reaction to activity.

Psychological interviewing of these patients is vital as having a long-term pain problem is very likely to produce low mood, depression and anxiety which in turn lead to poor coping and difficulties engaging with therapy. The clinical psychologist may find that the patient discloses a significant history of abuse, either in childhood and/or in adult relationships. This will have lead to important difficulties in dealing with other people, negative thinking, passive communication, anger and problems sticking to a treatment once agreed. The clinical psychologist will have an important role in supporting these patients through a course of treatment.

Psychological therapy in an FMS pain management programme covers education about the condition, validation that it is real, group discussion so they meet others with FMS to reduce isolation, negative and realistic thinking, communication and assertiveness, goal setting and planning, acceptance and mindfulness and pacing to reduce overactivity. Many FMS sufferers communicate very passively with their close relatives and others, leading to frustration and anger that their needs are not being met. A negative bias in thinking is typically present due to the large number of negative experiences connected with the condition.

Medical treatment is not very successful in pain syndromes but drugs such as amitriptyline can be useful with their nerve transmission altering affects. Many FMS sufferers react adversely to drugs and this limits their usefulness, especially if morphine-related chemicals add to lack of mental clarity and fatigue. A graded exercise programme, carefully guided to avoid overdoing, is useful in the longer term as these patients have lost of lot of strength and fitness. Stretching is often reported to be helpful and may be all a person can do if they are having a worsening but overall a structured plan is necessary for a pain syndrome.

The ankle is often classified as a mortise joint and is a very special joint due to its position in the body. The ankle hinge performs forwards and backwards movement during gait and confers stability so that we can balance during motion and on rough surfaces. The lower leg is connected to the foot by the ankle and this permits the body weight to be transmitted across the joint to the propulsion unit which is the foot. Most of the upper part of the joint consists of the tibia with a small contribution made by the fibula on the lateral side.

The mortise of the upper part of the ankle encloses the ankle bone or talus, which is set on top of a group of mid foot or tarsal bones which make up the foot arch. The upper dome of the talus articulates with the tibia surface and the talus makes two other important joints. One is with the navicular bone in front of it so it can transfer weight forward onto the forefoot. The other is the joint below the talus, the talo-calcaneal joint, a very complex and important foot joint.

As the weight comes down through the tibia it is distributed forwards through the navicular on to the metatarsals in the forefoot, down and backwards to the calcaneal joint and the heel. The metatarsals spread out in the front of the foot, lying in parallel and with mobile joints between them, allowing a great degree of mobility in the foot to cope with unstable surfaces. With the foot arches the weight is borne on the heads of the first and fifth metatarsals primarily, although if the foot develops problems the remaining metatarsals can also bear weight and become problematic.

The ankle upward and downward movements are known as dorsiflexion (up) and plantarflexion (down) and the inwards and outwards movements of the foot do not occur at the ankle. The inwards movement is known as inversion, the outwards as eversion, and both of these movements occur at the talo-navicular, forefoot and talo-calcaneal joints. Together these complex joints allow the body weight to be held stable over the feet as the body moves and to allow the feet to cope with irregular surfaces. The foots design allows it to satisfy these competing demands.

The foot is amazingly engineered to cope with the strong requirements which it is asked to. When bearing weight the direct downward forces are of a very high level and these are routed through the foot and transmitted further. The tarsal bones make up the foot arch and the forces are taken by their arched structure and by the ligaments which connect the individual foot joints. The muscles of the foot also have a strong role in managing to keep the foot structurally stable against the weight of the body and the forces generated by large body movements.

The front of the shin is the origin for the long and bulging muscle called the tibialis anterior, whose tendon clearly runs down across the ankle towards the midline. The tendon inserts to three bones making up the apex of the foot arch and when the muscle contracts it pulls the arch up and maintains its structure to some degree. The posterior tibialis muscle has its origin at the rear of the tibia and its tendon make its way around the inner ankle to finally insert close to the tibialis anterior tendon. This pulls the bone towards the back and contributes again to arch maintenance.

The arch is pulled up to some degree by these two muscles working in concert to pull it up and stabilise it from the side against the weight of the body. The spring of the foot, vital in running and walking, is maintained by this. Another important muscle is the peroneus longus which runs down the leg and its tendon runs under the outside of the foot to insert over towards the first toe. This arrangement stabilises the foot from any direction as there are muscles which pull from each direction to maintain the foot posture against the forces generated by movement and body mass.

Jonathan Blood Smyth is the Superintendent of Physiotherapists at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK. He writes articles about back pain, neck pain, and injury management. If you are looking for physiotherapists in Nottingham visit his website.

Sciatica is a medical issue that results in pain that starts in a person’s hip and can move down through the leg. It may impact the region around the knee, together with causing pain in the lower legs. The pain or numbness can range from mild to severe.

The human structure is comprised of a series of systems that help to preserve the health of the body and permit the person to enjoy their daily lives. The most important systems of the body are those involving reproduction, the urinary tract, digestion, circulation and respiration. The body’s nervous system is another crucial part of the process. This is a complex system of nerves that run through the body and send messages through the spine to the brain. It is one of the body’s most important systems.

Yet there are instances where these nerves can become pinched or compressed in the spine, which can lead to significant pain in various parts of the body. When this compression takes place, it generally results in a disorder known as sciatica. If you are concerned that this applies to you, it’s vital that you realize what sciatica is and what might cause it.

When one or both of the sciatic nerves are impacted then the disease is known as sciatica. With a nerve running down both the left and right legs, the sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the human body, and sometimes causes the most difficulties.

Although there are several causes of sciatica nerve pain, one of the most common is simply old age. This is because a certain amount of deterioration takes place when the body grows older. The spinal column is a critical component of our makeup that is impacted by this natural development. The vertebrae can apply pressure to or squeeze the sciatic nerves that tunnel through them if spinal degeneration occurs.

A herniated disc is another cause of sciatica nerve pain. This injury occurs when someone lifts heavy objects incorrectly, performs exercises incorrectly, or when some sort of damage occurs. If herniation is present, the discs located between the vertebrae will protrude. This can produce stress or force against the sciatic nerve, which ultimately causes the condition known as sciatica.

Sciatica is a painful condition that affects the lower body from the hips through the legs. It’s the result of pressure being placed on the sciatic nerve, located at the base of the spine. Learn more about the causes of sciatica nerve problems and how to treat the condition at Sciatic Nerve Pain Treatment.