This New Treatment Plan Is Fixing My Sciatica

After a few weeks, I realized my nerve was quieter at night. The first time I lay down to sleep and didn’t feel my sciatic nerve pulsing, I was so excited I nearly cried.

“Sciatica” Is a Sexy Topic for Search. For Research, Not So Much.

“Sciatica” is a subject of great interest to the public, but for researchers, it’s barely an afterthought. Scientific interest in sciatica is dwarfed by that in the broad but nebulous “low back pain.” And interest in low back pain is in turn dwarfed by that in other neurological conditions.

Shannon’s Story: The Test of a Sunny Disposition

It was like he had stepped on a lightning rod. The current curved from his back through his left hip and reached down through his leg and ankle. “It was just the most painful thing I’ve ever felt,” Shannon said. “It was so painful I couldn’t speak. All you can do in moments like that is hang on for dear life.”

Epidural Injections: The Weakness in My Bones

So did the epidural injections accelerate the bone density loss in my lumbar spine? I couldn’t prove it in a court of law. Since I didn’t have a DXA scan until seven months after my last injection, I don’t know for sure if the injections were correlated with bone loss. Even if I could prove causation, I don’t think any doctor knows for sure what effect that will have on my fracture risk thirty years from now.