Sciatic Pain-Caused by Nerve Entrapment-Appendicular Sciatica-pain
Neil Hall * Bowenwork® Practitioner * Bowtech® Health Center
Sciatic pain caused by sciatic nerve entrapment (Appendicular sciatica-pain) is caused by variable conditions along the course of the nerve and not at the root.
The most frequent of this type of Sciatic Pain is usually due to compression or pressure by the Piriformis muscle in the hip and can cause pain in the hip and sometimes all the way to the foot. The Bowenwork Technique is very effective in correcting this problem. (more information in next Sciatica article and in the Bowen Technique article).
Elastic glide is a term used to describe the sciatic nerve stretch which can be 3 ½-5 inches in normal hip, knee and ankle motions. The sheath that the nerve moves in may become tethered to a surrounding structure or it may become hardened or thickened from strain or injury and can often restrict the nerve’s circulation worsening the internal inflammation.
Impingement (compression or tension) on the nerve can cause internal inflammation of the nerve, reduce its blood flow and reduce its ability to glide and stretch.
You cannot rub nerve inflammation away and since sciatic nerve inflammation is caused by pressure, applying more pressure won’t help. With this in mind, it is usually best to avoid heavy direct manual pressure on the sciatic nerve; instead our goal is to increase “nerve glide”: decompress the nerve’s passageways, and release the nerve sheath from adjourning structures to restore normal neural movement, freedom and elastic sliding.
There are simple test that can be done to determine (in most cases) where the problem exist. Nerve pain typically radiates distally (downward) so when making these test we can locate the area that is most likely the cause of the pain. Other things can cause sciatic pain such as prolonged sitting, lots of driving, over developed or enlarged muscles etc., trauma to the sciatic nerve and others.
