It's SO great when someone comes up with a suggestion that works for you - that's wonderful!!

I wanted to make sure this came back up to the top in case motif happens to pop by in the next day or two....

Hello! I'm new to this website and the forum. My husband has been recently dealing with the pain from sciatica. When I read your post telling us how you were able to discover some relief from the pain, I was hoping that you could share the information you learned from Motif. Could you please tell me more about the trigger points, TMS, and book references that were shared with you?

Please please share this info! The books and references. I am in need of help!

I am suffering from sciatica pain and would be interestedin hearing what worked for you. Please share the advice as it could help more of us!!

Thanks!!

For my sciatica pain, what worked was the rhizotomy....

I'm truly sorry, this is my first visit back to the forum and i didnt realize so many people would ask me for info as i was trying to get a message over to motif. anyway. the original conversation was on the old forum so i have copied and pasted some message from myself to motif. my proble started as a "pull" of some sort in my back so i thought. this gradually worked down through my buttocks, legs, calves, feet, one side, then bi lateral, scitica and numbness. as my anxiety and fear got worse my condition perpetuated. here i am giving you the meat. if you wanna read the lot we talked about here is the link to the old board and our converation, but it is at the end when i get the info that started me off
http://messageboard.spine-health.com/viewtopic.php?id=17990

motif says:
sfabs,
yes, of course it can affect both legs. I have something like that.
2 thinks need to be done and I'm just doing them right now - relief almost immediately. First - Trigger points massage and second - special stretch for piriformis. Look at youtube - plenty of these. But you have to deactivate trigger point first, otherwise stretching will make it worse.
good luck.
one more thing - forget the doctor, they know nothing about this.
(or don't want to know)

sfabs says
Motif... Im on the hunt now for someone who can do trigger point massages and i'll be all over you tube looking for those stretches, got nothing to lose so might as well try them. is a deep massage similar to trigger point??

Trigger points and trigger point injections... piriformis injections...??? who is qualified to find these? who would perform the injections??
in another post you wrote about EMG... is this something that would help me with an accurate diagnosis?? who should i go to to get one, who would refer me, my GP? neurosurgeon? chiro? physio?? my neurologist didnt even mention it!!

motif says
don't do injection, this is not natural way of get rid off this and will not last for long.
EMG can tell if the nerve is e.g. pinched, my regular, family doctor referred me to it. But this have no much sense since you have theses symptoms, you have pinched nerve most likely because of tighten muscles in you buttocks. Few trigger point massage will easy these pressure. Other name for trigger point massage is so called Myofascial massage. It is deep tissues massage but not only.

Sad thing is that because of the ignorance of the docs,many people is cut unnecessary. Read these books, they've opened my eyes: The "Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" and "Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection"
plus buy a tennis ball and start working on you trigger points in your butt.

I repeat: stretches without deactivating trigger points WILL NOT WORK.

sfabs says:
Hello Motif

thanks for more help, i really appreciate it... the neurosurgeon says my lumbar and thorasic MRI scans are normal so im willing to try anything. The lower back and buttock stretches are the only things that have brought me any sort of light relief since i had this problem..
I really wanna try TMS and i just bought Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection off amazon second hand for £3!!!!
i will try the massages next week and look for someone to do TMS therapy...
i'll be sure to let you know how it goes or how far i get with it.

motif says:
there are some muscle relaxing drugs which my doc wanted to give me, I didn't want to though. Too many side effects. Very often all these symptoms are closely related to anxiety and stress like in my case (although I didn't know about it until recently) so I found some relief in taking some kava root (marijuana will do too )
I'm after first trigger point massage and some QiGong stretching and I feel great since 4 days, so drugs are not a solution - just an emergency tool.

TO SUMMARIZE
it was the book that changed it. piriformis syndrome and all the various stuff it "could" be were covered in the book. i since found the book was old and newer books from the author were written and they are even better. buy them second hand real cheap (im not trying to sell for anyone, im really conscious of this)
for me i ended up seeing searching for and finding a doctor who worked with TMS. some people just the info will help loads. i have used myofascial massage (different from deep tissue) and found it great as relief but it's not a cure. this is how it was for me. just because your MRI scan shows up deformities in the spine doesnt mean you need surgery or that is where the pain is coming from!
i wish everyone luck. i will check back sooner next time and apologize again