What is Sciatica: Symptoms, Causes and Diagnosis

Sciatica is a kind of syndrome which cause pain that radiates along the path of our body’s sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in our body whose is thickness is equal to the thickness of your finger. It arises in the lower spine of our body and passes through the hip, buttock and splits down in the legs. It divides into two branches at the knee that means each leg has its own sciatica nerve.

What Are The Symptoms of sciatica?

Now we know that the sciatic nerve is the longest and largest nerve in the body, so the pain of sciatica can be felt along the whole path of the sciatic nerve. This pain may start from the buttock to the foot, so whenever you feel any pain in the sciatic nerve area you should understand that it is the symptom of sciatica and you need the help podiatrist or physician to be healthy again. Sometimes a patient not only feel pain because of sciatica, but also accompanied by tingling or numbness. Sciatic for many years may cause weakness in your leg, so you should know about its symptoms to save your life before it gets late.

You must be surprised to know the fact that sciatica can only be felt in one leg at a time. Sometimes it gives a sensation like an electric shock in the nerve area, which may leave you unbearable pain. Sciatica pain has no limits, it may be mild ache or incapacitating pain all depends how deep it is. In a few activities like sneezing, cough or long sittings you may feel lower back pain which is a cause of sciatica, if avoided it may get worst.

You are lucky if you got a minor sciatica issue which gets better within a few weeks when treated by a sciatica specialist in Sydney. It does not last for a long time and saves you from permanent damage. If you are trying to treat it at home and even after a couple of weeks you are not getting positive results, you should see a podiatry specialist near in your town in Sydney. If you are losing control of your bladder or bowels and feeling numbness, do not avoid this case and instead of consulting with a physician you should look for a sciatica specialist immediately.

What Are The Causes Of Sciatica?

Here we have a list of common causes of sciatica that can be treated by the podiatrist specialist.

Herniated disc

The most common cause of sciatica is a herniated disc. This disc has stronger outer layer, which is made of cartilage and soft gelatinous center. If this outer layer gets week because of age or injury the soft center of Intervertebral disc bulges out, that’s why it is called as a haunted disc.

Bony growths (osteophytes)

Bony spurs are the bony outgrowth on the edges of joints along the sciatic nerve. Bone spurs are formed in the area where the cartilage is worn away and bone is rubbing on bone. To protect our body, few new bones are formed on the edges of the joints. This is known as bone spur, which is very painful and its rubbing on nearby bones causes a lot pain.

Piriformis syndrome

It is an uncommon cause of sciatica disease. The Piriformis is a muscle which lies in the buttocks. This muscle is responsible for external hip rotation and stabilization. The sciatic nerve passes underneath this muscle, when this muscle gets tight or goes into swellings, Pififormis syndrome occurs. This swelling in the muscle compresses the sciatic nerve and gives unbearable pain to the patient. But the good thing is that it is found in very less people, we can say one in seven gets this sciatic issue.

Diagnosis

When you are getting sciatic symptoms like leg pain, back pain, numbness and tingling issues you need to consult with the best sciatica specialist in your town. He will perform a physical examination of the spine and legs. He will check your muscle movement to find out the muscular strength and flexibility. X ray’s are used to find out bone spurs and other bone issues, but it cannot show up the nerve damage. When the symptoms are severe, CT scan and MRI are performed, which shows the causes of the sciatica clearly.