Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Sciatica Staying Away

I am happy to announce that the Sciatica condition has been staying away. The persistent stretching done every night (sometime missing a day or two due to tiredness) has helped greatly. My personal favorite is still the lying down leg up stretch where it really loosen the hamstring and give me a few shiver down the legs as I attempt to hold it straight as long as i could.
Grimacing in Pain - September 2011
The next favorite is where i do it often when sitting down in the office table doing my work. It is the Cross-leg and bend forward stretch that pulls the side of your thighs and hamstrings to ease the tension.
Breathe as you do this
Other things that might help would be eating well and eating clean. As mentioned in my the post on what to eat if you are having Sciatica, eating clean and sensibly is the main way forward. i have seen so much improvement personally by eating clean. The results beats any meal replacement or hunger some people needs to go through.
Click to enlarge.
Having said all the above, i ran many times recently without the Sciatica coming to bother me. I had my best (as in feeling)12km, my best 21km (again, feeling) and possibly, the best (yeap, feeling) few interval training that was executed in good form and quality compared to the previous 6 months!
And a whole load more comfy doing the stretching -  Feb 2012
Biggest challenge now is to keep Sciatica at bay and hope it never return. If it does, i will just have to find better ways to deal with it pronto. Life is too good now to be bitching about Sciatica!

9 comments:

  1. good one .. maybe try using a towel for better deeper stretch on the floor. Good to hear that

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  2. YES! That would help better Thanks for the tips!

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  3. Hi TriStupe ,appreciate if you could have advice on heel tendonitis . My chinese chiropracter ask me to stop running for a while to let the inflamation to go away . That is asking me to take bath for a week .

    Regards ,

    yk

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  4. oops ...typo ...not to take bath for a week .

    Regards ,

    yk

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  5. YK - Tendonitis or tendon? both refer to different part of the Achilles. Have you recently changed your shoes or added in a lot of hill work or ran a lot of mileage? It is inflammation of your tendonitis and could also meant a small tear at your tendon.

    I guess the bad news is that you have to stop running to allow the inflammation to reduce and possibly heal, then you will need to start stretching and do strengthening exercises for this small, but important part of your leg.

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  6. Thanks Tristupe for the kind advice .

    My Achilles tendonitis is where the pain behind the heel. I would have problem of stepping down my bed . It would be better after some stretching .

    Lately the pain is quite persistent and it is quite painful when I starts to run . I guess it could be due to two factors where I have just change a new pair of running shoe and probably due to increase mileage within a short period . I guess I have no choice but stop . I hope it would not be a long period because I noted that some takes about 6 months to heal completely .

    I think I may have aggravate my archilles tendonitis when I just start to run a short 3 km ...just to see whether my heel can take it . The tendon got a bit stiff after couple of hours after my run .

    I am wearing an Ebene ankle guard and it does help in my walking though.

    Oh yes ...I must say your blog is very informative , inspirational and helpful to a newbie like me .

    YK

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  7. YK - thank you for the compliment. I share what i know and what i went through. I realised when i was a beginner, i do not have much resources to count on and many things were done on trials and mistakes basis. I see it that i should share all these.

    I suggest you ice the archilles until the swelling goes down and take things easier. Swimming is a good start. :) Just make sure you get the intensity on the swimming!

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  8. that pH balance chart is too small. even after i click it

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    Replies
    1. Alamak, just realised that the larger file wasn't uploaded. I try to find it and repost.

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