How to identify sciatica symptoms

There are so many back problems you could have, and you may not know exactly how to identify sciatica symptoms. Fortunately, there’s a physical therapy team in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area that may be able to help you.

Advent Physical Therapy has been serving the residents of western Michigan since 1996. One of the main goals we have for your therapy is to treat you as an individual. This means that we’re always willing to take time to answer your questions or listen to your concerns. It also means that we won’t try to shove you into some cookie-cutter therapy plan. Instead, we’ll design a personalized therapy plan for you that targets the specific issues you’re dealing with. One scenario in which our philosophy is particularly helpful is when helping you figure out how to identify sciatica symptoms.

Three signs you can use to identify sciatica symptoms

Our Advent Physical Therapy team knows that you may not know how to identify sciatica symptoms. However, we can also tell you that there are three signs you’ll notice when you have sciatica.

The first sign our team encourages you to look for is that your pain is worse after you’ve been sitting for a while. Since sciatica is a condition involving nerves that run from your lower back, through your buttocks and down the back of your legs, sitting for long periods of time may cause increased pain. We can tell you that sciatica pain usually radiates from your lower back and down your leg. The pain can take many forms from a mild ache to a burning sensation. It may even feel sharp and excruciating like an electric shock.

Another sign that you may have sciatica is that your leg or foot feel numb. Our team knows that any pinching or damage to the sciatic nerves can cause numbness. This is because the nerve impulses that are supposed to travel along these nerves are interrupted. A third sign that you may have sciatica is you may have lots of trouble sitting down or standing up. Our team often sees patients that are experiencing this sciatica difficulty either as a result of pain or from limited sciatic nerve function.

If you’ve noticed any or all of these signs of sciatica, we encourage you to seek help from our team of physical therapists as soon as possible. Even if you still aren’t sure you know how to identify sciatica symptoms, our team can still help you. We offer free 15-minute screenings that can help you find out if your symptoms are from sciatica or another condition. To take advantage of our help, there’s only one thing you have to do.

Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.