Quote:
Originally Posted by Pwalla
I know your pain. I had sciatica so bad two years ago I thought I was ready for a wheel chair and I was an athletic healthy person. When I see people go to a GP or PT for this now I cringe. I had only 3 sessions of acupuncture from an excellent licensed one trained in Chinese medicine as well. He wasn't Asian himself. The 3 sessions included using tens stimulation and heat as well as putting the needles into the skin deep. This was my first experience with acupuncture and the first two sessions hurt bad afterwards but now it's been completely gone two years later!! Voila!! Now I go to him first before other treatments. My guy charges $65 and also takes my insurance so ends up about $30 a visit. My insurance allows 20 visits a year. Goodluck!!
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Not knocking acupuncture. Acupuncture and trigger point therapy are similar, but not the same. Acupuncture (and acupressure which is acupuncture without the needles) is applied to energy meridians. Trigger point therapy is ischemic compression (a la acupressure) applied to small hypertense nodules that refer pain to other areas. One of the site's moderators provided an excellent detailed explanation of trigger points in another thread
If vertebral compression and damage to the sciatic nerve sheath by any one of several nerve disorders has been ruled out, by the process of elimination, the cause of your sciatic pain will have to be muscular compression of the sciatic nerve that enervates the legs.
The usual culprit is the piriformis muscle deep in the posterior hip. The nerve passes directly beneath this tiny but very powerful muscle--in about 25% of people, the sciatic nerve passes through the middle of the muscle. When it becomes hypertonic, it applies considerable pressure on the nerve, causing numbness, weakness and or tingling down the leg. Look it up on an anatomy chart.
One trigger point will be located an inch or so off the sacrum; two more can be found near the muscle's insertion on the femur. Contributing trigger points can be found in the gluteus medius on the thigh between the greater trochanter of the femur and the crest of the ilium; a couple more really active trigger points are in the quadratus lumborum which binds the ribs of the low back to the hip. With determination, a trigger point chart and a tennis ball, you can release these trigger points yourself. Better yet, get a friend to do it for you. Appropriate pressure applied to a trigger point will be mildly painful but for only a few seconds. Less painful than an acupuncture needle pinprick.