Tag Archives: Sciatica

The Four-Sided Devil Muscle That Causes Low Back Pain

Low Back PainIf you have lower back pain or sciatica here’s something you should know.

There is a muscle on each side of your waist called the quadradus lumborum or QL.

It is also called “the muscle from hell” and “the four-sided devil.”

See the dark red muscle at the waist on the far side of this illustration?  That’s it on the left back side of a body.  It attaches to the lower ribs, the spine and the hip bone.  The outer side of the QL is open. (Those are the 4 sides.)

That one in the picture is Continue reading The Four-Sided Devil Muscle That Causes Low Back Pain

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Sciatica and Piriformis Syndrome

You probably already know that there are far fewer back surgeries performed today than there used to be.

The reason is because too many times after surgery folks still had the same pain.  It didn’t go away.  That’s because the diagnosis for the cause of the pain was incorrect.

Muscles are the most common cause for pain and they are also the most commonly overlooked or ignored cause.

So sometimes a person truly does need surgery.  But surgery should always be a last resort.  Once something is removed or fused it’s changed forever.

And if it doesn’t cure your problem it makes it harder for natural methods to succeed.  Maybe not impossible, just harder.

Probably the biggest problem with surgery for sciatica is that it’s only addressing the immediate symptom.  It’s not addressing the muscle imbalances that probably caused the problem in the first place.

When your muscles are “out of balance” you get into pain.

That’s why you didn’t have pain when you were an active child; you were using ALL of your muscles then.  And that’s why you have pain now; you aren’t using them all anymore.

You might not move much these days, right?  🙁

You see, when your muscles are out of balance they pull your spine out of the position it is supposed to be in.

Did you realize that just about everything that happens in your body has a cause?  If you fall, you get a cut or bruise or broken bone.  The reason was because you fell.  Cause and effect.

Get rid of the cause and you can change the effect.

So if you really want to get lasting relief from sciatica, the very first thing you must do is figure out which muscles are out of balance and causing your pain.  The second thing is to treat them and get them back to neutral.

I remember years ago when I was a new massage therapist.  An elderly woman came in complaining of “sciatica.”  As soon as I placed my hand on the gluteal (buttock) muscles on the side she complained about, I could Continue reading Sciatica and Piriformis Syndrome

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What Causes Sciatica And What Is Sciatica, Anyway

What is the best treatment for sciatica?  And what IS sciatica, anyway?

You have a very large nerve that runs through your hip.  There is one on each side of your body.  This nerve is about the size of your finger in diameter.

When you have sciatic pain or nervy pain in your hip (buttock or gluteal muscle) or leg it’s caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve.

Nerves hate pressure!  If another part of your body–a bone or muscle–presses on your sciatic nerve it will complain by giving you nervy pain.

Disks in your spine that are “bulging” can press on the sciatic nerve.  (But what caused the disks to bulge?)

So can bone sometimes press.  And so can the muscle in your hip (butt) called the piriformis.

But why?

When the pressure comes from the piriformis muscle, it is often Continue reading What Causes Sciatica And What Is Sciatica, Anyway

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