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May 18, 2013
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Sciatica

Medical Author:
Catherine Burt Driver, MD

Catherine Burt Driver, MD, is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Driver is a member of the American College of Rheumatology. She currently is in active practice in the field of rheumatology in Mission Viejo, Calif., where she is a partner in Mission Internal Medical Group.

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Medical Editor:
William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

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Sciatica Overview

Sciatica (pronounced sigh-AT-ih-ka) is low back pain combined with a pain through the buttock and down one leg. The leg pain usually goes past the knee and may go farther to the foot. Sometimes, weakness in the leg muscles occurs with sciatica.

  • The sciatic nerves are the largest nerves in the body and are about the size of your little finger. They come out of the spinal column low in the back and then go behind the hip joint, down the buttock, and down the back of the leg to the foot.


  • Sciatica is different from other forms of low back pain because while the pain most often begins in the back, it usually travels down one lower extremity.


  • The pain is usually a shooting pain, like electricity. It can also burn like fire or tingle much like the feeling when your leg "goes to sleep." The pain can range from slightly annoying to totally unbearable. Some people have pain in one part of the leg and numbness in another part of the same leg.
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Sciatica - Treatments

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What treatments have been helpful with your sciatica?

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Sciatica - Describe Your Experience

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Discover the causes, symptoms, and treatment of sciatica.

The Problem Isn't Always Where It Hurts...Sciatica

Author: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
Editor: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD

In evaluating patients in the office, we doctors must always keep a very open mind. For example, when a patient says that their problem is located in a certain area, they may use laymen's terminology that is technically inaccurate, they may have forgotten certain characteristics of the condition because of lack of sleepor pain, or the problem may feel like it comes from a certain location yet it may actually be coming from an area of the body far from where it is perceived. This last situation is commonly the case when a person has sciatica.

Sciatica is pain resulting from irritation of the sciatic nerve. Sciatica pain is typically felt from the low backto behind the thigh and radiating down below the knee. The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body and begins from nerve roots in the lumbar spinal cord in the low back and extends through the buttock area to send nerve endings down the lower limb.

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