I want to know where you feel the weight in your feet. The answers to these give me massive clues as to why you might be feeling pain.

Elle X

What is sciatica? If you’ve had it you will know the pain.

Sciatica is actually a generic word used to describe pain down the back of the leg. This pain could have originated from imbalanced muscles, stuck or over worked joints pinching or pressing on nerves.

Basically, it could be down to a whole host of reasons. Sciatica is a bit like saying you have a headache, very non-specific. Now this pain might go all the way down the leg into the foot from the lower back, it might just be in your bottom or it could be areas like the bum and the calf. Again this all comes under the term of sciatica.

It could be in one leg or it could be in both. The pain could be sharp, electric, constant or intermittent, dull or throbbing. Are you starting to get the picture that when you are given the label of having sciatica, it could fall into a whole host of different causes?

Getting Rid Of Sciatica Via A Full Body Approach

Foot Scan

The feet are the only things in contact with the ground, so where you feel the weight distribution and the shape and structure tell me a lot about what your body might be doing further up the chain.

I want to know where you feel the weight in your feet. In the heels, fronts, more one side than the other? The answers to these give me massive clues to why you might be feeling pain.

Can you begin to picture if you had all your weight in your heels, and one particularly, how this keeps the back of your body (muscles and joints) working really hard? And how if an area is under more pressure and working harder how this might start to cause pain?

Movement

I want to start asking questions of the movement patterns in your body to find out if they are working in sync or not. The bones in the body can only move in three ways: forwards/backwards, side/side and rotation.

By asking the legs, pelvis, ribs, spine, head and arms to each move individually in these 3 ways we can start to build a picture of which plane is dominant, do you favour one side of your body, can you move the areas individually and can you create opposition in your body.

For example can you twist your ribcage one way whilst twisting your pelvis the other? Can you allow on hip to lower whilst the ribcage tilts the opposite way? Or does you pelvis and ribcage move as one solid mass? Have a quick try. People are often very surprised how hard it can be to move the pelvis and ribs separately , that’s if they can do it at all!

If your body is not able to move in opposition you lose the ping ability to your muscles. It is the equivalent to putting a stone in a catapult, not pulling it back but expecting the stone to fly. The stone has no power and falls to the floor.

Now picture your oblique muscles – one part attaches to the rib and the other to your pelvis. If the ribs move one way and the pelvis the other you are adding stretch to the muscle – ping to your catapualt – when you rotate the pelvis and ribs the other way, the muscle that was lengthening is now contracting. This gives the muscles their power.

Keep It Simple

From all the information we have collected from above and a little more, we start to move the body in the ways that feel comfortable. We nudge those moves, asking a bit more from them each time as change and growth only happens on the edge of your comfort zone. In the stretch zone.

We never go into pain as the brain will block pain. Pain doesn’t create a safe environment for the body to change, if anything your comfort zone will begin to shrink.

I also have you doing the moves. If you do the moves the body begins to relearn how to do them in a safe environment. If I were to do them to you, when I stopped the brain may say: something has changed, I didn’t do it, I’m going to bounce back to the old ways I know. And always quality over quantity on the movement front. It is better to do the correct move a few times really well than the wrong move loads of times, really badly.

To sum up, sciatica is another way of your body telling you, you need to make a change somewhere. Don’t get bogged down with only looking at the back. Start working your way through this blog post and ask your body questions and see what it has to say.

With the information, start moving in and out of the movements that feel good to do and ask a little more from them each time. Not only will you learn a lot about how your body works, what it finds easy and what it doesn’t, but if you don’t sort the pain out you can go to your health professional of choice with a whole stack of useful feedback and great information!

Until next time …

Knowledge is absolutely power but only when ACTION is taken

 Ellie x

 

"I'm at the end of a long hard journey that I couldn't have taken without you and your wonderful knowledge - I haven't stopped blubbing since I got home - that breathing thing has made me feel like I've let go of something that's been keeping me down and I'm so so eternally grateful."

Business owner (Once held back by major neck surgery)

"Truly amazing! Ellies knowledge of the mind and body knows no bounds."

Mum (Once a hip pain sufferer)

"I am so impressed by the amount of mobility I regained so quickly. A set of well structured small achievable moves relieved a huge amount of pressure from my back. My issues were cumulative and had reached a point where I was struggling to move."

Accountant (Back pain was stopping her move let alone run)

"Ellie quickly assessed my whole body, my body’s history and posture and saw problems that I wasn’t aware of. These were causing the pain and most likely all the other previous ailments I had, all on my left side."

Business Owner (Once had long term hip and knee problems)

"I highly recommend Ellie, don’t wait until all other options have failed, go to her first. She will give you an honest answer about any pain in your body."

Business Owner (Once suffered with neck, back, knee problems)

"First time in so many years I have no back pain, it's such an amazing feeling and I love working with her."

Business Owner (Once plagued with years of back pain)