Hi, I'm so sorry to hear about your two riding accidents. I'm even more sorry to hear about the pain.

If it were sciatica, then my experience might help because I haven't had sciatica since I started having vitamin B12 replacement. Before having replacement, I had sciatica a LOT. NO FUN.

I'm presently dealing with a sharp pain in my left leg that has to do with extreme stress last month. Stress can cause muscles to knot and be very painful.

I'm working on gradually lengthening the affected muscle by doing mild stretching exercises. This has worked in the past. Not fast, but... in the end the pain was gone when the muscle "lengthened".

Pain is tricky in that it's sort of a traumatic event for our bodies, so we tend to have a sort of post traumatic stress syndrome... that is, the cause of the pain is reduced but the pain is just as bad as before. Apparently that has to do with our body's memory of the pain.

So, I use Ibuprofen to keep me from feeling the pain, or some of it, at least some of the time. I find that using Ibuprofen for a long period is sort of counter productive. It's as if it stops working, and more doesn't help. So then I have to stop using it, which usually results in a day or two of intense pain... but then, almost magically, the pain is vastly less.

Have you used an Epsom salts soak? That can do wonders. Epsom salts ... I forget the terms, but it basically sort of ... oh dear, words to describe it are eluding me. I guess you might say it sort of flushes into cells and allows the things that are contributing to the pain to be flushed out... That's a very coarse description. I've found it works VERY well.

I hope you feel better VERY soon.

Karen