Sciatic nerve pain is an uncomfortable condition that leads to discomfort in your back and legs. It’s annoying but usually goes away by itself with proper lifestyle changes and home care.
However, you can make sciatica worse with simple daily habits. You may not realize you’re damaging your nerves immediately, but soon enough, it will be apparent.
Dr. Steven J. Svabek and his compassionate team can help if you're suffering from sciatic nerve pain. Dr. Svabek is an experienced orthopedic specialist who offers treatments like steroid injections and surgery for unrelenting back pain.
Sciatica is a medical term that describes pain in your back that travels into your buttocks or down your legs. It’s due to compression of your sciatic nerve.
The sciatic nerve starts in your lower back and then splits, branching down into your buttocks and down your legs. It terminates below each of your knees.
A genuine injury to your sciatic nerve is uncommon, but any pain that begins in your lower back and radiates to your leg is often called sciatic pain.
Sciatic pain comes from the compression of a nerve. It often begins in your low back and may radiate to your hips, buttocks, or legs. Pain is one of the first symptoms, with other symptoms including:
Sciatic pain usually only affects your back and one leg, but it’s possible to experience discomfort in both legs. Your symptoms can come on suddenly and may come and go, depending on your activities.
If you have sciatic pain, it’s crucial that you know what makes it worse. Your lifestyle has the power to significantly harm or help your pain. Common habits that make sciatic pain more severe include:
Sitting in one spot for longer than 20 minutes makes sciatica worse. It causes stiffness in your joints and muscle spasms, and it hampers your mobility. Sitting on soft furniture is also a bad idea, as it doesn’t support your back.
Bending forward from your back puts a significant amount of strain on the discs, muscles, and ligaments surrounding your spine. Injury to your back and nerves causes sciatic pain to flare and get worse.
It’s not a good idea to lift heavy objects while bending forward when you have sciatica. The load of the thing, plus the force on your spine, may cause a herniated disc or muscle injury. Either of these can significantly harm your back.
Although you don’t have to avoid twisting completely, you should know how it impacts your spine. Turning and rotating your spine too much causes strain on the muscles and ligaments. Twisting can cause an injury, which worsens your existing sciatica.
Just like habits that make your pain worse, you could also have practices that improve your back pain. If you follow these habits, you’ll notice that your sciatic pain gets better:
When you practice good posture, you’re keeping your spine in alignment. This keeps too much force from pressing on your nerves, which significantly helps sciatic pain. It takes the pressure off your discs and muscles.
Mobility is critical when it comes to sciatica. Exercising regularly makes you less likely to suffer bouts of pain. Just be mindful of your exercises; focus on low-impact activities like walking, swimming, or yoga.
Tight muscles cause excess pressure on your back. Light stretching in the morning and before exercise helps loosen your muscles and ligaments. Stretching also keeps your spine aligned, taking pressure off your nerves and discs.
Inflammation has a lot to do with back pain. When you watch what you eat, you’re giving your body the proper nutrients and vitamins that keep everything healthy. Avoid overly processed foods, along with sugar and alcohol. These contribute to inflammation throughout your body.
When you have sciatic pain that doesn’t seem to get better, call our office at 954-466-9140 or request an appointment on the website using our convenient scheduling tool.
