Question
Hello,
I have in the past years ago have been diagnosed with a herniated disk with sciatic pain. Back then I went to PT it helped and then I had no pain.Recently I had been having lower back pain again when standing up straight with the sciatic pain going down my leg to my calf. I started PT again and lower back pain is better but when I walk or lay down I feel a burning in my calf as well as again in that calf when I walk.When I go to Physical Therapy they give me heat and message the leg and calf and have me do exercise and stretch.The calf pain is not decreasing any thoughts on what I can do to alleviate the pain or make it go away completely or what might be causing this?
Thank you

Answer
Hello Eslma,

Sorry to hear about your sciatica pain.  The good news is that I do think there are plenty of things you can do on your own
to keep your sciatica pain at bay.

First, you need to understand that all the muscles in your body are like the rigging (ropes) on a big old-fashioned sailboat where everything is yanking on everything else.   When all the tensions in the muscles (like ropes) are balanced then you can walk, stand, sit, lie down without any nerves being compromised by inappropriately tight muscles.  But if you have inappropriate soft-tissue tightness then often times it results in nerves being affected and you feeling pain.

I explain all of this in greater detail on my completely free website, Do-It-Yourself-Joint-Pain-Relief
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/
where I have videos for every single joint in the body.

I'm going to recommend that you visit my Sciatica Pain Relief page,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/sciatica-pain-relief.html
and follow along with the videos.  

You'll notice where the inappropriate tension is in your body, and when you release it your pain should go away.
And depending on how you use your body, that tension may slowly come back from the way you drive, compute, exercise, sleep, etc.
But you'll know how to fix yourself in short order if you ever need to again in the future.

I do hope this was helpful.

All the best,

Gary Crowley