Heat is a common method to relieve sciatic nerve pain. But it does not work for everyone. Just like people have sciatica for different reasons, people react to sciatica in different ways.
If your muscles are strained, or you have that familliar shooting pain going down your leg, then heat should give you great relief.
But if you try heat and it makes your pain worse, that usually means that the muscles are actually inflamed. You know what happens when you add heat to heat right? You get a bigger fire. Muscle inflammation around the sciatic nerve is different than sciatic nerve inflammation. Muscle inflammation cannot take heat, on the other hand, an inflamed nerve is simply reacting to the stress around it.
So, what should you do?
If you find that heat is only making things worse for you:
* Stop using heat (of course.....)
* Put ice on the area where you are feeling the pain. 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off
* If you are still in pain after 48 hours, then call your doctor. There are 2 reasons for this:
Thanks to Kyle Mays @ Flickr for use of today's pic
