Radicular pain, or more commonly referred to as Sciatica when present in the lower limb, can effect a wide variety of individuals who may have very different backgrounds and presentations.
Empowering patients through an active approach is important, with an emphasis on maintenance of meaningful activities and exercise. There’s no ‘3 best exercises’ to help with sciatica, but good improvements can be made with a structured programme, lifestyle management and psychological support.
Avoiding iatrogenic effects by staying away from harmful terminology should be encouraged, moving away from the paradigm of your ‘spine being maligned’, ‘slipped disc’, ‘leg length discrepancy’ and ‘SI joint out of place’, among many other nonsensical terms.
This paradigm becomes harmful long-term for the patient, as when they get pain recurrence (which is normal) they now associate this with something being out of place and automatically enter danger mode.
The exercises included in the video are all exercises which may be incorporated as part of a graded plan if you suffer from sciatica. However, they are by no means specific and a lot more goes into a plan for managing sciatica.
If you think you have sciatica, the most important thing you can do is to get assessed by a qualified professional. If you’d like to get treatment, we have clinics across Ireland where we can help your condition.
