Pain that radiates down your leg into the calf or foot is a common symptom of sciatica. Though pain levels vary, many people with sciatica find the pain sensations to be worse than back pain. David Delatte, MD, and Vikramjeet (Vik) Saini, MD, at Advanced Pain Management, with offices in Phoenix, Tucson, Chandler, Surprise, Mesa, and Glendale, Arizona, offer many innovative pain solutions for sciatica. Call the office most convenient to you, or use the online booking tool to schedule an appointment today.
Sciatica is a painful condition that develops from compression or irritation of the nerve roots that make up your sciatic nerve as it exits the lumbar spine.
Your sciatic nerve is a sensory and motor nerve. It’s made up of several small nerves that exit from your lumbar spine and join together to travel deep inside your buttocks and down the back of your legs on both sides of the body.
With sciatica, you feel pain that radiates along the path of the nerve, usually only on one side of your body. Your pain may range from a mild ache to severe burning or electric-shock-like sensations.
Sciatica most often occurs from irritation of the nerve root as it exits the lumbar spine. The irritation is most often caused by a herniated disc or bone spur that develops from degenerative changes that affect your spine as you get older.
Other conditions that may cause sciatica include
You may be at greater risk of developing sciatica if you have a job that requires heavy lifting, regular twisting of your spine, or prolonged sitting. Obesity and diabetes also increase your risk of developing sciatica.
The Advanced Pain Management team offers many effective and innovative treatments for sciatica. Treatments include:
To reduce inflammation and swelling of the spinal nerve roots and surrounding tissues, the team provides epidural injections into the spine near the area of nerve root irritation.
When other treatments and interventions fail to alleviate your sciatica symptoms, the team may recommend spinal cord stimulation. The device delivers low-level electrical signals to the spinal cord or specific nerves to block pain signals.
During radiofrequency ablation, the team at Advanced Pain Management destroys the nerve sending the pain signal to your brain to provide long-term pain relief.
Though rare, in some cases, surgery may be needed to fix the underlying cause of your sciatica to provide effective pain relief.
For relief from your sciatica, call Advanced Pain Management or book an appointment online today.
