Originally Posted by mrsD

Hip Pain in Athletes - American Family Physician

This link is very good for illustrating MP:

Illlustration 2B shows this nerve well.

This nerve comes out of the L4 or L5 (there are variations for this anatomy) , enters the back of the abdomen and exits in the upper thigh under a tight ligament.

Tight belts, tight clothing (sitting in tight pants/jeans), invasive procedures, arthritis and spurring in the lower back , surgeries etc.

This is our MP forum...it is not really busy so it is easy to find posts there. MP only affects sensation on the side of the thigh across the front. It does not serve the back of the leg .
or affect motor nerves. But it does arise from the same area of the spine.
https://www.neurotalk.org/forum76/

I avoided surgery for it, and drug therapies. Lidoderm patches finally became available, and I tried those with great success.
I placed 1/2 patch at the top of the thigh where the nerve exits the abdomen and after daily use for 2 weeks, the nerve turned off and I have had a remission since then. Heat, from any source will set it off again, so avoid hot tubs and heating pads.

Today there are new Lidocaine patches OTC with 4% lidocaine in them (that is 1% less than the Rx ones). You can try yourself using them or using the cream/lotion at that ligament area to see if it will work for you too. Aspercreme Lidocaine and Icy Hot now make the OTC lidocaine. They are relatively new. I use the OTC versions now BTW for many PN issues.

I am going to bring up another thing. Invasive spinal injections can be problematic. Your treatment for the sciatica may have injured the lining of the spinal cord. It is possible that the epidurals damaged the spinal cord, so you can Google that.
I'd recommend that you demand to see the drug container used for your epidurals. Do you recall the horrible situation about the compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts which manufactured generic Medrol injection under non sterile conditions and many people were injected with fungal spores and many died and others permanently damaged. Doctors bought this product to save money and ended up in a huge mess.

I am so sorry you are suffering so... Glenn has had some MP issues too, so you might PM him for his experiences.