Been walking in the boot the past 3 days. Wound is looking better every day and everything is coming along nicely now. Feels great to be able to walk again. However, I’ve developed pretty severe sciatica on my “good” side that has been gradually getting worse over the past 6 weeks or so. The pain/numbness has now made it all the way down to my foot when it is at its worst. If it isn’t one thing then it’s another I guess. I have very limited access to formal therapy because of my student insurance but I will have my first visit on 5/14. Probably will only be able to do 3 maybe 4 visits max. I’m still on track to start my clinical rotation if I can gradually build up my standing tolerance and get the sciatica resolved which I’m confident of. Anybody else have sciatic nerve pain on your good side?
Cheers,
-GK
3 comments ↓
I had a herniated L4/L5 and L5/S1 prior to my ATR, the L4/L5 is what will usually cause the numbness/tingling that goes down your leg and into your foot. Here is what I do, and I’ve now been 4+ years post-herniation with “full” recovery:
1. ibuprofen - some people have stomach problems, fortunately I have had none; this will keep the swelling in your back down
2. stretches - I start with numbers 2 and 3 on this link (http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/flexibilityexercises/tp/3morningstretches.htm)
next I do the prayer stretch (http://magazine.stack.com/Exercises/4216/Prayer_Stretch.aspx)
3. planks - I do a 45-60 second plank straight and then 30 second planks on each side
the key is to kill the swelling so that you can do the stretches and core strengthening. the more you rest it the weaker your surrounding muscles will get and the more pressure you will be putting on your spine. you may have to do the planks from your knees and opposed to toes while you rehab the ATR (this is what I did).
hope this helps. back pain sucks, it took me just over a year to fully recover from my herniated disc (no surgery).
lsjoberg; Thanks for the input. I’m actually a physical therapy student so I tend to overthink things when I’m trying to self diagnose. I think my issue is more peripheral, likely related to piriformis overuse. Every time I do my piriformis stretches lately, my entire leg gradually gets that tingling feeling and I have pretty severe pain right where the muscle/nerve meet up. I’m hoping that now that I’m able to walk my gait will gradually get back to normal and the hip musculature on my right side will get a break, inflammation will subside and I’ll be ok. Here’s sort of an interesting tidbit also; I always forget the exact number (I want to say it’s about 15% roughly) but a certain amount of the population actually has a sciatic nerve that pierces through the muscle belly of the piriformis rather than passing beneath it. These people would likely be more prone to these symptoms with an overuse injury. Maybe I’m in the 15%. Thanks again for your advice and feel free to amaze your friends with that statistic
I found that even when I was at a stage with the boot hinged into 10 degrees dorsiflex it still stuffs your whole gait up so it doesn,t surprise me that you might have ended up with sciatica. I became quite a fan of walking poles to keep a symmetrical even gait - have a browse on my blog - i,m a physio by the way.
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