Sciatica feels like this- Sciatica is pain going down the leg from the lower back. This pain may go down the back, outside, or front of the leg. Onset is often sudden following activities like heavy lifting, though gradual onset may also occur. The pain is often described as shooting. Typically, symptoms are only on one side of the body. Certain causes, however, may result in pain on both sides. Lower back pain is sometimes present. Weakness or numbness may occur in various parts of the affected leg and foot.
About 90% of sciatica is due to a spinal disc herniation pressing on one of the lumbar or sacral nerve roots. The straight-leg-raising test is often helpful in diagnosis so you know that sciatica feels like this. The test is positive if, when the leg is raised while a person is lying on their back, pain shoots below the knee.
In most cases medical imaging is not needed. However, imaging may be obtained if bowel or bladder function is affected, there is significant loss of feeling or weakness, symptoms are long standing, or there is a concern for tumor or infection. Conditions that may present similarly are diseases of the hip and infections such as early shingles (prior to rash formation).
What Does Sciatica Feel Like?
Well, sciatica feels like this: The symptoms of sciatica are commonly felt along the path of the large sciatic nerve. Sciatica is often characterized by one or more of the following features:
• Pain. sciatica feels like this – like a constant burning sensation or a shooting pain starting in the lower back or buttock and radiating down the front or back of the thigh and leg and/or feet.
• Numbness. Sciatica pain may be accompanied by numbness in the back of the leg. Sometimes, tingling and/or weakness may also be present.
• One-sided symptoms. Sciatica typically affects one leg. The condition often results in a feeling of heaviness in the affected leg.1 Rarely, both legs may be affected together.
• Posture induced symptoms. Sciatica symptoms may feel worse while sitting, trying to stand up, bending the spine forward, twisting the spine, lying down, and/or while coughing – sciatica feels like this. The symptoms may be relieved by walking or applying a heat pack over the rear pelvic region.
See Types of Sciatic Nerve Pain
It is important to note that any type of lower back pain or radiating leg pain is not sciatica. Sciatica is specific to pain that originates from the sciatic nerve.
• The Sciatic Nerve
SCIATICA FEELS LIKE THIS
The sciatic nerve, also called the ischiadic nerve, is a large nerve in humans and other vertebrate animals which is the largest branch of the sacral plexus and runs alongside the hip joint and down the lower limb. It is the longest and widest single nerve in the human body, going from the top of the leg to the foot on the posterior aspect. The sciatic nerve has no cutaneous branches for the thigh.
This nerve provides the connection to the nervous system for the skin of the lateral leg and the whole foot, the muscles of the back of the thigh, and those of the leg and foot. It is derived from spinal nerves L4 to S3. It contains fibers from both the anterior and posterior divisions of the lumbosacral plexus.
In humans, sciatica feels like this: the sciatic nerve is formed from the L4 to S3 segments of the sacral plexus, a collection of nerve fibers that emerge from the sacral part of the spinal cord. The lumbosacral trunk from the L4 and L5 roots descends between the sacral promontory and ala and the S1 to S3 roots emerge from the ventral sacral foramina. These nerve roots unite to form a single nerve in front of the piriformis muscle.
The nerve passes beneath piriformis and through the greater sciatic foramen, quitting the pelvis. From here, it travels down the posterior thigh to the popliteal fossa. The nerve travels in the posterior compartment of the thigh behind (superficial to) the adductor magnus muscle, and is itself in front of (deep to) the long head of the biceps femoris muscle. At the popliteal fossa, the nerve divides into its two branches.
The tibial nerve, which travels down the posterior compartment of the leg into the foot
The common fibular nerve (also called the common peroneal nerve), which travels down the anterior and lateral compartments of the leg into the foot. The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the human body. Sciatica feels like this