Me and sciatica have been dancing with each other for 20 years or so now.

I go down the medication route - constant diet of cocodamol, supplemented with naproxen occasionally. If it's a really really bad flare up, ill get baclofen, and if all else fails, gabapentin.

I've tried a TENS machine, it helps a bit at the time, but can't say it had a long term effect. Physiotherapy wasn't too helpful either, I've kinda just resigned myself to it, tbh.

Sorry, I know that's the last thing you'll want to hear if your Mrs is suffering! Plenty hot baths are good, deep heat gel did help a bit, and one other thing an ex gave me - a type of gel that's made from green mussels. You can buy it over the counter, think it was about a tenner a tube or thereabouts.

Scout wrote:

Anyone got any sciatica advice? It's for my partner. She's in a miserable spot right now. Gave birth 2 weeks ago. Just about feeling back to normal when she's struck with sciatica pain that's preventing her from getting out and about with the baby. She's got an appointment with the osteopath tomorrow so hopefully that helps. But it rings a bell someone in here suffered from the same?

It’s tempting with sciatica to find a position that’s comfortable and stay there. Resist that temptation as whilst it feels OK at the time it’s agony when you finally move due to the muscle spasm. Instead the best thing during the day at least is to stay mobile - walk around, but avoid bending, lifting and even twisting.  (For that reason don’t use the car unless absolutely necessary as people tend to contort their bodies to get in). I know all of the above is tricky just after having a baby but, well, you’re going to have to help with that I guess. 

In the short term a bit of ice for 10–15 minutes can help. After the first 24-48 hours switch the ice for heat. (Heat can make things worse in the immediate period after an injury). Pain relief is your friend early on - so if she can take painkillers do. This will help relax the muscles and get her moving more normally, which in turn will help.

There are some exercises which can help, the ones on the NHS website are sensible enough.

There are a couple of red flags which should trigger an immediate trip to hospital. These are very unlikely, but also very important not to miss. Act on them straight away, surgery will fix it, leave them and you have it for life).  SO, any of the following - go to Casualty immediately: (1) Problems with bowels or bladder - particularly loss of continence. Or. (2) Loss of feeling anywhere on the body that would normally be in contact with a bike saddle.  Do not ignore them.

Pain can take a while to go I’m afraid, usually about 2 weeks, but to give you a sense of it, GPs don’t normally investigate until you’ve had it for 6 weeks or more. Physio can certainly help a lot (osteopaths are slightly more controversial, but in their defence it’s hard to do double blinded osteopathy).

So, yeah, in short - mobilise, don’t lift, pain relief if she can have it, exercises, patience, and see someone immediately if red flags.

Hope she’s better soon.

Good luck Grem. Ask to take it home and make black pudding.

Well, just to complicate things it turns out I've got shitty veins in my arms where they'd normally put the cannula to extract the blood. So after three nurses attempting to find a vein big enough for the gauge of needle they gave it a go.

Unfortunately this meant a nurse having to stand with the needle in my arm constantly making small adjustments to it's position to keep the blood flowing. Fucking agony, could barely move my arm afterwards. Next time they're going to try my forearm...

It also turns out that my serum ferritin levels are far higher than they first thought. They should be at about 100, but mine are 1676! So this means it'll be weekly bloodletting for the foreseeable future, until my levels come down.

Merry Christmas! Might be time to buy a Switch Lite, going to be spending a lot of time in hospital!

Aye. Hugs to Grem.

So sorry to hear that - Switches hospitals suck.

Damn Grem, pls get well soon.

Have you tried laying off the Irn Bru for a bit?

Roujin wrote:

Damn Grem, pls get well soon. Have you tried laying off the Irn Bru heroin for a bit?

Nothing serious, just a few days rehydration in the penile fracture ward.

Bastard stole my yoghurt too!

So today we held a Young Person Planning Meeting (YPPM) for a kid in our school - it's the Edinburgh council standard way of noting such meetings. Everyone was there, me, the support for learning teacher, the educational psychiatrist, the educational welfare officer, mum, the child, and the wee sister.


The wee sister is at primary school and wasn't in the best frame of mind.

We sit down. I say, let's do introductions, and the wee sister says "I feel ill" and then vomits on the table.


Meeting adjourned.


If I'm down with the norovirus tomorrow you'll know why.

Have you tried leeches?

Diluted Dante wrote:

Have you tried leeches?

That's the next step.

Heh.

Aye, hopefully your body will adapt to the process.