If you’re reading this with intense pain shooting down one side of your body, from the buttock through the leg, you could be suffering from sciatica. At The Institute for Comprehensive Spine Care, with offices around New York, including Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Englewood and Jersey City, New Jersey, Gbolahan Okubadejo, MD, FAAOS, offers a variety of effective sciatica treatments. Visit the practice for a consultation today. To schedule your appointment, call or use the online booking tool.
Sciatica is pain caused by an injury to or pressure on the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve runs from your lower back down into both legs. The pain is similar to a cramp, ranging from a dull ache to a burning sensation that can be severe, sharp, and excruciating.
You most often feel sciatic nerve pain in your lower back, your legs, your hips, and/or your buttocks. It can go all the way down into your feet. Usually, you feel sciatica only on one side of your body.
Common sciatica symptoms include:
Sciatica is caused by the pinching of your sciatic nerve. Most often, pinching like this comes from:
It can also come from pressure placed on the sciatic nerve by a growing uterus during pregnancy.
Sciatica frequently resolves on its own after a few to several weeks. However, if your sciatica is debilitating, extremely painful, or chronic, you don’t want to wait around for it to get better on its own.
At The Institute for Comprehensive Spine Care, Dr. Okubadejo offers injections, surgery, and off-site physical therapy to ease the pain of sciatica.
Dr. Okubadejo offers spinal epidural steroid injections for pain. He injects a cortisone steroid into in your back, close to the roots of your sciatic nerve, where it relieves the pain of inflammation. The pain relief from epidural steroid injections can last from a week to a year.
If you suffer from severe sciatica lasting more than three months, you might be a good candidate for surgery. Sciatica surgery is especially beneficial if your pain centers in your leg.
Typically during surgery, Dr. Okubadejo focuses on removing whatever is putting pressure on or compressing your sciatic nerve, usually a herniated disc or a bone spur. After decompressing your nerve, he can also increase your spinal stability by fusing in bone graft, screws, and rods, a bone spacer, or an interbody device.
Another option that Dr. Okubadejo can recommend is off-site physical therapy. During physical therapy, you strengthen your back by doing repetitive exercises and walking regularly. Each physical therapy prescription is different, depending on your needs and limitations.
If you’re in pain, schedule an appointment online or over the phone with Dr. Okubadejo at The Institute for Comprehensive Spine Care today.
