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The first time I had a problem with sciatica was as a teenager. I was very active in sports, horseback riding, basketball and track. I remember going to a dance and at the dance I turned the wrong way and had a sharp stabbing pain in my hip. I hobbled to my car and drove home. The next morning I was very sore but as the day progressed it slowly began to subside. I was string bean thin as a teenager through my twenties suffering but not realizing I had severe allergies (I am currently working on a book about this subject) so I had only moderate muscle mass. I had my first child just before my twenty-fourth birthday and at seven months pregnant developed a condition where I couldn’t walk without suffering from sever lower back pain. I hobbled into my doctor and he gave me exercises to do. The helped and after I delivered the discomfort went away. At thirty-one I had my son and had the same problem with my back and leg. I again did the exercises and after I gave birth it went away. Thirteen years ago I began to notice lower back stiffness and pain the day after I exercised. I had joined a gym and when I did sit ups this area became irritated. The discomfort would subside after three or four days. In 1993 I bought a horse and started playing a little polo. I began having pain on the days I didn't ride. I went to an orthopedic specialist and he x-rayed my lower back. He said the discomfort I felt was from some inflammation in my lumbar region of my spine. He told me to stop riding. I didn't agree with his conclusion and continued to ride and suffer from the discomfort. I began seeing a chiropractor and received adjustments on a weekly basis for two years. This didn't seem to help much so I lived with the pain which was slowly getting worse whether I rode or not. Three years ago I began suffering with loss of motor control of my right leg along with a burning pain that ran down my right leg to my heel and my heel would become very sore. If I sat for an hour then got up to walk the leg would refuse to work for a few minutes and my first few steps would have to be slow and controlled. I also was aware that when I would jog or try to run I could not get the leg to behave properly as if the muscles were congested. Quite often I would almost loose my balance and start to fall so I would have to slow down. During the middle of last summer there were several times when the leg did begin to give out and I would fall over if I turned wrong. I had some lidocaine on hand and decided to inject the area of discomfort. I found that I could almost completely eliminate the pain by numbing the side of my right hip so I knew there had to be something going on in that area. |