Massage therapy for sciatic pain

Sciatica is the term used to refer to pain along the sciatic nerve, which extends from your lower back, through your hips and buttocks, and down each leg. Sciatica typically affects only one side of your body and can range in severity from mild to severe. It’s often accompanied by other symptoms, including numbness, tingling, or weakness in the affected leg and foot. Sciatica can interfere with your daily activities and make standing, walking, and even sitting difficult. If you’d like to try an alternative to traditional painkillers, massage therapy is one of your options .

In true sciatica, which means the pain comes from the sciatic nerve impingement within central nervous system, Massage Therapy can not eradicate the cause from central nervous system and usually the patient needs to get referred to medical attention, but it can provide relief from the pain; if it is pseudo sciatica, which means the cause of the pain does not come from central nervous system but from the muscles around the sciatic nerve in periphery, such as pyriformis muscle contraction squeezing the nerve giving the same pain as true sciatica does, then massage should be a very effective solution to relieving the pain.

When it comes to sciatica, massage can help in two ways. Massage’s main benefit is soothing tense muscles. When your muscles are tense, they can put more pressure on your nerves, including your sciatic nerve. Deep tissue massage therapy can help to reduce pressure on sciatic nerve. Soft tissue massage can also help to increase pain threshold by stimulating the release of endorphins. Endorphins boost pleasure and relieve pain, causing an increased feeling of well-being.