What Is the Best Treatment for Sciatica?

Are your sciatica symptoms a hassle, a drag, or a burden you bear and manage daily? This common pinched nerve (radiculopathy) condition causes pain and other uncomfortable symptoms in your lower back, buttocks, hips, or legs. Your symptoms often only occur on one side of your body. Sciatica pain can become a pressing problem in need of relief.

When you need effective treatment for sciatica, board-certified neurosurgeon Dr. Beejal Y. Amin can help. Dr. Amin practices in Hinsdale and Woodridge, Illinois. He determines the best treatment for your sciatica and works with you to address your symptoms.

Untreated sciatica: shooting, stabbing lower body pain

Issues with the structure of your spine cause pinched nerves. Sciatica pain occurs when your sciatic nerve, which runs from your spine down into both legs, becomes pinched, entrapped, compressed, or irritated.

You may experience pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness in your lower back or leg, often felt exclusively on only one side of your body. The pain may feel like a shock or come over you with a sudden stabbing sensation. Your hips and buttocks may be affected by sciatica pain, preventing you from sitting, standing, or walking comfortably.

Sciatica can flare up and then fade away. However, if you’ve been struggling with sciatica symptoms for several weeks, reach out to Dr. Amin and explore your treatment options after professional evaluation and diagnosis.

Finding your sciatica treatment plan

Like other major nerves, the sciatic nerve passes through gaps in your spinal bones (vertebrae), creating chances for compression or misalignment. The sciatic nerve is located in your lower back, passing through your lumbar (lower back) spine. Your sciatica may relate to a herniated or bulging spinal disc, degenerative disc disease, lumbar spinal stenosis, or spinal canal narrowing. Nearby muscle spasms can also irritate the sciatic nerve.

To determine what treatment you need to relieve your sciatica, Dr. Amin learns more about your symptoms and the underlying condition of your spine and sciatic nerve. Dr. Amin asks detailed questions about your symptoms, performs a physical exam, and reviews your health history. An MRI exam confirms your diagnosis and provides key information about the exact area where nerve compression is taking place in your back.

The best treatment for your sciatica

The correct treatment depends on the severity of your symptoms and their underlying cause. Dr. Amin recommends that you try conservative treatment options whenever possible. However, in some cases, spinal surgery may be the treatment path that’s the likeliest to provide the best pain relief results.

Conservative approaches to treating sciatica include pain management with anti-inflammatory medication, rest, physical therapy, gentle exercise, and muscle relaxants. Healthy weight loss may take pressure off your pinched nerve, relieving your symptoms. Dr. Amin also offers nerve block and epidural steroid injections to end the inflammatory pain cycle and for precision diagnostic identification of the affected area of your spine.

When an underlying structural issue in your spine needs surgical care, Dr. Amin uses state-of-the-art spine surgery techniques, including robotic technologies and minimally invasive, camera-guided surgical tools. You may need a discectomy, an artificial disc replacement, spinal decompression, or spinal fusion.

To get started with the best treatment for your sciatica, contact Beejal Y. Amin, MD, today. Give us a call now, or book an appointment online.