Sciatic and low back pain are extremely common. They are also among the most highly misdiagnosed and mistreated conditions in Western medicine. Why?
It is commonly assumed that sciatic pain, traveling down the leg, is caused by a herniated disk or spinal stenosis (a compression of the spine usually due to osteoarthritis). To assess this, doctors order an MRI which takes a picture of the spine. Often, the MRI shows little or no problem in the spine, and the patient is sent home, perhaps with a prescription for painkillers, muscle relaxants or anti-inflammatory medications.
In fact, in the majority of cases the pain is actually being caused by tight muscles that squeeze on the sciatic nerve as it travels through the low back, hip and leg. By releasing the tight muscles with acupuncture, the pain disappears rapidly. Depending on the severity of the problem and how long you have had it, you may need between 2 and 6 treatments to clear it up. Even so, most people feel a degree of immediate relief that lets them know the treatment is working right away.
The same is true for low back pain without sciatica. It is also true for pain in other areas of the body -- shoulders, neck, legs, arms -- virtually anywhere there are muscles, you may have pain caused by chronic tension in those muscle groups. For some reason, most doctors don't seem to include this in their diagnosis. Even when they do, pharmaceutical medications are usually not effective enough on their own to treat this condition.
When you seek acupuncture for pain that may be caused by tight muscles, you want to look for an acupuncturist who knows how to perform "trigger point release." This is a specific acupuncture technique that causes a twitching in the tight muscles as it releases them. Not all acupuncturists are trained in this technique, and without it, it can be difficult to achieve the full muscle release, or it may take much longer to do so.
