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Sciatica: Symptoms

Sciatica occurs when the sciatic nerve is compressed due to a variety of different reasons. To clarify, sciatica is often used to refer to any pain in the lower back and leg(s), but only fits the medical definition when the sciatic nerve is in some way affected. Depending on the reason and the person, different symptoms apply, but generic symptoms do apply to most cases. Ranging from mild to severe, those symptoms are as following:

1) Pain in the leg, buttocks, or lumbar (lower) vertebrae that grows worse when sitting
2) A shooting pain when attempting to stand, especially when sitting in a seat lower than the knees
3) Chronic or constant pain in one side of the rear (and often the leg)
4) Weakness, or difficulty when moving the leg or foot, sometimes accompanied with a mild numbness
5) Intermittent burning or tingling down one leg
6) Rarely, progressive weakness in the leg or incontinence which may require immediate medical attention

The various symptoms vary largely due to the differences in where the compression of the sciatic nerve occurs. Because it extends over a large portion of the body and is easily inflamed or constricted there are numerous opportunities along its length for trouble to occur.

Depending on the location of the back, symptoms include a reduced knee-jerk reflex, weakness in the big toe and/or the ankle, pain and/or numbness in the foot, reduced ankle-jerk reflex, or general weakness and pain in the foot. However, all of these symptoms are less likely than the ones radiating through the leg from the lower back and rarely occur without the leg pain and/or numbness first.

As mentioned above, the severity of these symptoms ranges wildly, in part due to the underlying cause. Most of the time bed rest and appropriate doses of ibuprofen are enough to cure inflammatory sciatica; however, this treatment may take several weeks. In the meantime, if you experience severe symptoms that are constant rather than sporadic, you may also have difficulty walking that may severely interfere with your daily life.

This comprises the large part of genuine sciatica symptoms. There are variations from person to person but generally everyone suffering the condition will experience some, or all of the symptoms above.

Sources

answers.com
wikipe dia.com
spineuniverse.com
spine- health.com
www.nlm.nih.gov

Learn more about this author, Trey Russell.
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