What Are The Best Sciatica Pain Treatment At Home? Try These Effective 17 Tips!

Is it possible to treat sciatica pain at home, and without spending lots of money going to chiropractor/doctor and buying expensive medicines?

Yes it is! Contrary to what doctors and chiropractors would like you to believe, sciatica pain is fairly easy to overcome, provided you are doing the right things.

With these 17 best sciatica pain treatment at home, you’ll be able to stop it fast and effectively!

 

Hi, my name is Isaac and I was a victim of slipped disc and sciatica. The cause is improper exercise form – specifically dead lifts.

I was trying to jacked up my dead lifts too heavy too soon, and I paid the price with a slipped disc.

A problematic lower back usually goes hand in hand with sciatica pain. The protruding spinal disc material can impinge on the sciatic nerve, causing tingling pain whenever I did not sit or stand “right”.

In addition, I was also feeling the same pain around my back thigh, again, a normal symptom with sciatica.

I went to physiotherapy and chiropractor for a few sessions but found they are quite expensive. Sure, it helped but I’m a believer in the healing powers of our own body.

Thus, began my search to find a natural cure to my sciatica.

In this article, I’m going to list down 17 best ways for sciatica pain treatment at home that I have personally used in my battle with sciatica pain.

These tips are fairly basic and logical, but believe me, these are much more efficient in the long run than a painkiller drug a doctor will prescribe.

 

By the way, I learned all of these tips from this Sciatica SOS ebook. It’s a great all-in-one ebook comprising all the information you could need to know about sciatica and how to cure it.

It has helped me a lot in my own journey and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

By the way, there’s currently a great discount on the ebook so you might want to take advantage of that (click here to check if the discount is still available).

 

17 Highly Effective Sciatica Pain Treatment At Home (That You Can Do For FREE!)

1. Rest and Relaxation
2. Use Heat and Cold Packs
3. Drink Natural Juices
4. Eating Peanuts
5. Drink Elderberry Tea
6. Nutmeg Oil Massage
7. Sleep Therapy
8. Drink Lots Of Water
9. Take Multivitamins and Omega 3 Supplements
10. Trigger Point Massage
11. Sit Properly!
12. Hamstring Stretch
13. Thigh and Piriformis Stretch
14. Back Extension Stretch
15. Bridging Exercise
16. Kneeling Stabilization Exercise
17. Aerobic Conditioning

 

1- Rest and Relaxation

One thing that most people underestimate is how important it is to take a good rest and relax our body.

Any type of pain actually is a signal by the body to let us know that something is wrong at that point of time. This is very much true with physical pains such as sciatica.

Most often that not, the pain is triggered by our body posture at that point of time.

So what should we do?

Change our posture, rest and relax our body. It’s the easiest way for a quick relief for sciatica!

If we feel a tingling pain after a few hours of sitting and doing work, immediately get up and relax our body.

Sitting for a long time will put enormous stress on our lower back, which in turn will trigger sciatica.

Standing up and doing light stretches such as standing back flexion (more on this later in this article) will take off stress from our back.

Another thing that I like to do to release stress on my back is by sitting and inclining my body backwards while at the same time extending my feet forward – in what I would call the lazy posture.

What this will do is making our upper back and our thigh take over the weight and relieving the lower back from stresses.

BUT only do this to relax once in a while and keep your head up.

DON’T do this when working on a desk as your hands and head will be tilted forward, causing more damage to your body!

But please be wary that resting on the chair or bed for a long time is not good too.

The key ingredient to battle and overcome sciatica long term is by strengthening our body with exercises (I’ve also listed a few key exercises below, so make sure you check them out!), and just lying on the bed will only make our body weaker.

 

2- Use Heat and Cold Packs

One of the fastest way to get quick relief from sciatica pain is by using heat and cold packs.

While some people prefer only one of these, actually both of them provide benefits to a sciatica or any type of muscle injury.

Where to put ice and hot pack for sciatica pain?

What I’ll do is simply apply cold packs on the pain location to numb the area. It can either be your lower back, or the back of your thigh.

This, with having a rest (like above tips) will provide lots of relief to our body. After 10-15 minutes, take out the cold packs and apply heat packs on that area.

Applying heat will increase blood flow and boost recovery around those areas.

What type heat and cold packs to use?

The most convenient way to use these are in the form of patches that you can buy at any pharmacies or health related stores.

These patches contain chemicals that will give out the heat/cold whenever used. Don’t want to spend money on these or don’t have time to buy it – suddenly having sciatica attack at home, for example.

Just dab a piece of cloth into a warm water and use it as a heat pad. You can also use the same method for cold pack (dabbing into iced water), or better yet, get a cold pack that can be reusable by storing it in fridge

 

3- Drink Natural Juices

Certain foods like carrots, celery, ginger and cherry have natural analgesic effect that can relieve pain.

The good thing about these foods are it’s a natural pain killer (no need to dabble with prescription drugs).

Best of all, it’s also loaded with lots of vitamins and minerals that have many positive effects on our body such as anti-inflammatory properties, improve blood flow, and relaxing muscle.

Try to drink juices made of these ingredients because it’s an easy way to gobble up lots of these ingredients in a short amount of time.

Also, I like to add in leafy vegetables (kale, spinach, etc.) inside these because it’s fully packed with nutrients.

 

4- Eating Peanuts

In addition to the natural juices, you can also try eating peanuts. The tasty snack is fully packed with magnesium which is a powerful natural muscle relaxer.

In addition to that, it’s also a good source of anti-oxidants that can help reduce inflammation in our body.

Eating a handful of 25 grams daily would suffice to give the benefits to combat sciatica pain.

Just make sure you’re taking the natural type without any massive salt or sugar content in it (no matter how tasty that is) as that will only bring more bad than good!

 

5- Drink Elderberry Tea

Another great muscle relaxant is elderberry tea. Elderberry plant or its scientific name Sambucus cerulea has been used by the indigenous people of Americas due to its great healing properties.

It’s fully packed with many flavanoids, anti-oxidants and numerous vitamins (A, B & C).

The elderberry tea can be consumed one cup daily before bed.

How to make an elderberry tea?

You can either DIY (this website has a good instruction to do so) or just buy one of the elderberry tea bags (my favorite way!)

 

6- Nutmeg Oil Massage

For a quick relief, a massage on the pain area will do wonders to relieve the sciatica pain.

You can also use nutmeg oil for an added benefit of reducing inflammation and increasing blood circulation around that area.

 

7- Sleep Theraphy

If you’re like me, suffering from lower back pain and sciatica, you’ll notice that sleeping on our back is not as good as it used to be.

The thing is no mattress is good enough to be able to follow the curvature of our spine perfectly. It’s either too soft (our body will sink) or too stiff (lower back not supported enough).

Because of this, there might be impingement on the sciatic nerve even when we are just laying on the mattress, which causes pain.

Which is why one of the best sleeping position advocated by medical professionals for those with lower back pain and sciatica is sleeping on the sides.

There are a few reasons but one of it is it’s much easier to get a natural spine position when sleeping at sides.

Don’t forget to put a pillow in-between your knees to keep the hips aligned with each other.

By the way, even though lying on our stomach works wonders to relieve back pain (because our body weight is taken off our spine), it’s not a good position to sleep with.

This is because the unnatural head position when we’re lying on our stomach where it’s turned to one side. It’s cool to do it for a few minutes but definitely not for hours.

You might end up causing damage to your head and neck (which houses ALL of our nerves) when trying to relieve your sciatica pain!

Sleeping on your stomach is actually a relieving position for your lower back and sciatica pain. But just look at that unnatural neck position that will only bring trouble …. You surely don’t want to keep that for hours!

 

8- Drink Lots Of Water

Another very simple but highly effective tips that most people tend to overlook is to drink lots of water. It’s commonly known that our body and spine consist mostly of water.

So by drinking lots of it, we can help our spine to re-inflate and turned up its natural healing properties.

Drinking lots of water also have many other benefits such as removing toxins from our body, help kidney to function optimally, and help move vitamins and minerals to be used more effectively by our body cells.

The usual 8 glasses per day is a good starting point but it won’t do you any harm to drink more water.

Another important point I want to emphasize is to drink only plain water – not coffee, sodas or alcoholic beverages.

Our body’s natural state is only designed for plain ol’ water and the other types of drinks will only burden it more and might do you more harm.

Tea is generally considered OK depending on what type of tea – herbal tea is good, just make sure it’s not sweetened.

Not to say that you can’t drink coffee/soda/beer but just exercise moderation when drinking those drinks.

A good rule of thumb is to only take a maximum of one glass of those drinks every day while making sure you’re drinking at least 8 glasses of plain water daily.

 

9- Take Multivitamins and Omega 3 Supplements

As part of a way to give our body the nutrients it craves for optimal function and internal healing, it’s very important to take supplements for multivitamins and omega 3.

These are much needed to nourish our body to fight inflammation and swelling which are the prime cause of sciatica pain.

Remember, sciatica pain is because the sciatic nerve is pinched by the spinal disc or muscles around the nerve, which are actually inflamed. Reducing this inflammation will greatly help with sciatica pain.

But why supplements? Can we just get it from foods that we eat?

Ideally, all of these multivitamins and omega 3 are gotten from the foods that we eat.

But it’s just not feasible for most people as we don’t have time to cook ourselves.

A daily life of a modern adult involves lots of moving around, not with the 8-to-5 daily job and the kids that need to be tended to.

As a result, we don’t have the time to prepare a good and balanced food with enough nutrition for our body.

That’s where supplements come in. It’s an easy way to give our body the multivitamins and omega 3 that it need to function and heal it from within.

 

10- Trigger Point Massage

Another massage that you can do to relieve sciatica pain is trigger point massage.

Trigger point is small hard points on your muscle that feels unnatural. It’s actually a group of muscle fibers that due to trauma and shrinkage became twisted and coagulated to become a knot.

It’s a source of pain because the knot makes the muscle in it lose access to nutrients and toxins can began to accumulate.

For those with low back pain, you can notice these trigger points when you touch your low back area.

Notice that certain areas have lumpy muscles that are otherwise absent from the other areas. That is the trigger point.

An easy way to relieve them is by applying steady, mild and sustained pressure on the knot. This will help relax the muscle and release the tension to loosen the knot.

So how to apply steady, mild and sustained pressure on the trigger points?

Obviously, a normal self-massage won’t cut it – notice the sustained part? It’s hard to keep on applying pressure to your back muscles by your own hands.

You can use on of the trigger point massage devices such as the rounded ball (or tennis ball would suffice), the trigger point massage cane, or even a self-treatment platform that has many pressure bumps on it. Just lie down and let gravity do its work!

 

An example of how to use trigger point therapy case

 

An easier way to do it yourself is by using a platform such as above

 

Or if you can afford it, you can opt for a professional trigger point therapy massage.

It’s different than normal massage as the therapist will apply the pressure to specific trigger point areas to relieve the knots.

 

11- Sit Properly!

Oh I can’t say how much this one tips have improved my life! Sitting properly should be one of the compulsory things that teachers taught in school!

The thing is, most people tend to slouch forward when sitting, especially when doing work.

Yes, it’s the easiest position as our hands are extended forward on the desk but this made the lower back to take unnecessary higher stress.

In addition, you’ll find your lower back to be pushing to your behind, which further worsening the back pain (remember that most back pain and sciatica issues are because the spinal disc is damaged and pushing the nerve at our BACK).

 

Sitting while slouching forward is the easiest and most natural position for those with desk jobs, but it also does the most damage to your lower back!

So what’s the best way to sit then?

It’s simple actually and I bet you’ll immediately feel the difference. Just try to keep you low back and spine straight by pushing it out a bit.

To achieve this, you’ll also need to tighten your stomach. Notice that your hips are rotated forward & downward when you do this, and your upper body is rotated upward & forward.

Also notice that your low back pain will suddenly vanish – that means the stress on your lower back is transferred as it should have been and does not cause pain anymore.

One thing I would like to point out is this sitting form is a challenge to hold.

For me, I can only hold it for a few minutes but I noticed that I’ll revert back into the slouched position unconsciously afterwards.

So what I do is after 15-20 minutes, I’ll make sure I stand up, do some light stretches and when I sit down again I make sure my form is tight and proper.

So if you also has trouble to keep up with this sitting position, you can also do the same. Trust me, your lower back and sciatica nerve will thank you for this!

 

Now we’re moving into exercises and stretches that you can do at the comfort of your home. I have a few tips and advice that I would like to share about these exercises:

1. Generally, all stretches and exercises need to be hold for 20 to 30 seconds a go. Repeat it for 2 to 3 times.
2. It is recommended to do it daily, around afternoon time is the best time, but at least 3 to 4 times per week.
3. I really recommend that if you’re new to some of the exercises to look up at youtube and learn the correct way to do it.
4. It’s often that those with serious back problems or those fresh from having it (like you just got a slipped disc last 2 days) have very limited movement. In this case, you don’t have to do the full stretch like what is shown here. Just try to do it as much as you can. BUT if you feel a very serious pain in any way, stop immediately and don’t do that exercise until you’re better.
5. Last but not least, don’t forget to breathe while doing these exercises and stretches!

 

12- Hamstring Stretch

There’s lots of variations with this stretch but my favorite is this one (because it’s easy to do and you don’t have to sit down on the floor).

This one will work wonders if you have sciatica pain on your thigh.

Simply stretch your hamstrings for about 20-30 seconds daily and you can actually feel that the sciatica pain will go away after a few days.

What it does is to stretch the hamstrings or the muscles on at the back of your thigh.

Unless you’re very active in sports and stretch your body frequently, most often than not your body is very tight due to your sedentary lifestyle.

This tightness can also cause sciatica pain when the muscles around the sciatic nerve impinged upon it.

In addition, stretching our muscles can help improve our flexibility enormously (think when you want to reach something down or high up).

 

13- Thigh and Piriformis Stretch

A tight thigh and piriformis are also the main causes for lower back and sciatica pain.

Piriformis is a muscle that connects our hip to our legs, and just like the hamstring above, are usually very tight in an average adult body.

Especially so for someone that do a desk job, hours of sitting tend to shorten the piriformis, and this have a negative effect on your sciatica pain.

Doing these stretches will help to relieve the tight muscles and prevent it from impinging the sciatic nerve.

There’s a lot of variations with this stretches but a couple of exercises or stretches that I love to do are:

Knee to chest stretch: While lying down on your back, bring one of your knees to your chest. Feel and enjoy the nice stretch underneath your buttocks!

 

Piriformis stretch: Also while lying on your back, cross one of your legs and pull both legs towards you. You’ll feel a great stretch below your buttocks but this time it’s at a different location.

 

14- Back Extension Stretch

Another stretch that will provide quick relieve for your lower back and sciatica pain is the back extension.

It’s actually doing a reverse of what we’re used to do unconsciously, that is pushing out our stomach to the front.

The average guys will be slouching forward which put a strain on our lower back. The back extension stretch seeks to reverse this by doing the exact opposite.

Below are two variations of the back extension stretch that I use:

Lying back extension: Just lie down on your stomach and prop up your upper body using your elbows. If you notice, the simple act of lying down on your stomach will instantaneously relieve your low back pain.

So this actually do it a bit further by pushing out your stomach. One thing that I would like to point out is to not hold this position for too long and don’t push up your upper body too far.

This could have an opposite effect and make your low back pain worse.

 

Standing back extension: My go to stretch whenever I’m working: the standing back extension. It’s very easy to do, just stand straight and push out your stomach.

You can also extend your arms upwards and inhale while doing this to feel the extra relieve on your back.

What I love about this is how convenient it is to do (no need to lie down) and I’ve never feel any pain when doing it because it’s hard to over stretch your back (unlike the lying variation above).

Definitely one of my recommended stretches that you can do on a daily basis!

 

15- Bridging Exercise

As most adults sit a lot, our glutes or butt muscles are usually always stretched (or elongated as we sit). As a result, it’s not as strong as it should have been.

Having a weak glute will cause your posture to not be in a good form, that is a posture that does not support your lower back.

In order to build your glute muscles, bridging exercise is a good exercise to do as it activates the glute and the erector spinae, a muscle that connects to the spine.

Having these 2 muscles in great shape will help you to have a good upright posture, reducing stress from the lower back (due to unnatural posture) and help reduce lower back and sciatica pain.

So how to do it?

Simply lie on the floor with your knees bend. The slowly uplift your whole upper body up to create a straight line from your head to your knees.

The key here is to contract your glute (if you feel your butt is squeezed, then you’re doing it right!) and use it as pivot to lift and hold your body in that position.

 

16- Kneeling Stabilization Exercise

An exercise that I personally enjoy doing due to its challenging nature is the kneeling stabilization exercise.

And this is one of the exercise that had helped me a lot in my battle with lower back pain and sciatica.

Just like the bridging exercise, the kneeling stabilization exercise seeks to strengthen our core muscles such as the deep abdominal muscles, hip flexors and many others.

Doing this exercise frequently will ensure your core is strengthen (aka stabilized) and this will ultimately lead to better posture and lesser pain around your lower back.

Starting from a 4-point kneeling position, you need to tighten your stomach to make it look flat as the natural position of your upper body in this form is an arch downward.

Try to hold it for 20-30 seconds and don’t forget to breathe. There’s a few progression in this exercise such as bringing your leg or hand up, and bringing opposite hand and leg up.

Check out the video below to see all the variations of this exercise:

 

17- Aerobic Conditioning

Remember I said that too much rest is also not a good idea? Being bedridden for days will only weaken your already weak body (if not, you won’t be having those sciatica pains…).

One thing that physiotherapists always advise is to keep our body moving. Our body is designed to be moving except for the 6-7 hours when we’re sleeping, so keeping it moving will ensure the muscles are always trained and strong.

While the exercises above are very good to help reduce sciatica pain, you might not be able to do those exercises especially if you’re fresh from an injury.

What you can do in this situation to keep your body moving and well-oiled?

Aerobic conditioning.

There’s many types of aerobic conditioning that you can do. Just a simple walk around the park is also called aerobic conditioning. You can also do stuffs like jogging and swimming.

The main purpose is making sure our cardiovascular system is in a great shape. This can only be done by moving your body, make that blood flowing and heart beating at a heightened rate.

My personal way is to do it until I’m sweating – that way, I know I’m pushing my body just enough for it to have a positive effect.

But one key thing to remember is that after each session of walking/jogging/swimming, you should feel better than before you started, not worse.

For example, my physiotherapist used to recommend me to swim as part of my rehab for my slipped disc.

Even though that’s standard advice given by doctors all over the world, I felt that swimming (at that point of time, fresh from injury) only made me worse.

On the other hand, jogging at a moderate pace was OK for me. The key take-way is everyone’s body and injury situation are different. So always do the things that make you feel better, not worse .

 

 

Conclusion

Dealing with sciatica pain is not very hard, as you can see from these tips. You don’t even need to spend thousands of dollars going to a doctor or chiropractor in order to deal with it.

You can relieve sciatica pain at home, and fast with these effective home remedies. But bear in mind these tips need to be done right to work effectively.

What you need – and most people seem to lack this – is dedication and discipline to do it everyday, especially the exercises and the proper sitting form.

I know it’s a bit hard especially if you’re a parents with high demanding jobs and kids, but remember, your only asset in life is your body. If you don’t take care of it, no one will. A healthy body will lead to a healthy life =)

 

By the way, I learned all of these tips from this Sciatica SOS ebook. It’s a great all-in-one ebook comprising all the information you could need to know about sciatica and how to cure it.

It has helped me a lot in my own journey and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

By the way, there’s currently a great discount on the ebook so you might want to take advantage of that (click here to check if the discount is still available).

 

 

 

I hope this article on sciatica pain treatment at home is beneficial to you. Do let me know if there’s anything that you want to know more about. I’ll be glad to help you out =)

Cheers!