Sciatica, pain and numbness

Brain and nerves
1

Hi,

For the past 6 years I've been having shooting agonising pains up both backs of legs for no apparent reason.  (bending forwards can make it worse)

I lost 4 stones in weight when my dad suddenly died, the weight went from around my bum and thigh area. I've since put weight on - not as much as I lost.

I had a hysterectomy a couple of years ago.

I'm told that it sounds like sciatica - from people who have the same thing and my doc said the same.

Recently it has got much worse, after walking for a few minutes both legs go numb from the foot up, I have trouble with my balance anyway (MD, Surgery etc) this makes it worse. I'm also in pain if I stand still - basically I can't, I have to sit or walk (i use a stick to help with inner ear balance trouble, which docs / specialist can do nothing about)

My doc has said "it will go away" - yes, right, when?

Any ideas? (apart from changing my doc)

2

Does it help if you lay on for example on a sofa and have feet resting over the back of the sofa or on a large billow that makes the hips and knee angles 90 degrees?

I've heard that bending forward can make the discs bulge in a way that they press the nerve roots. Especially this happens if the spinal blocks are closer together because the discs have "slimmed" down. Because you have it on both legs I would think it is the discs are too thin nerves get pressure where they come out of the spine. The protective layer covering the nerve wears out it there is constant pressure on it. I think this happens with age to quite many people. Thing is they can widen the nerve root channels surgically.

How old are you may I ask?

And are you on any hormonal medication due to historectomy? I mean women hormone levels have to do with osteoporosis. That would cause the spinal blocks to "shrink".

So what is your calcium and vitamin d-level intake?

Something to help is to keep up a good level of hydration and work on core muscle stability to support the spinal colum, with movements that do not hurt the back or the legs. I guess pilates would be good. Little movement of the spine can help the nerves to become "untrapped" when they are moved tiny bit into a diffrent position.

Kindly note I'm no doctor and you should consult someone you trust. Find someone who knows about back problems in real. Not everyone is expert or worth listening to.

The osteoporosis can be diagnosed quite easily I believe. The weakening of the bones is reversible but I think any damage already done is not. But if you have osteoporosis you are in a hurry to start doing something about it.

3

I have been diagnosed vis MRI with spinal stenosis.  I do not have osteoporosis, spondololrthesis, scioliosis - nothing other than disc compression in a few spots and bulging or herniated discs.  The terrible leg pain, both legs, down thighs and twisting around calfs and into foot, all sudden onset and I have no clue what caused it to finally scream out.  Initial treatment which eradicated pain completely was a strong antiinflamatory for 1 week only, followed my Mobic for 4 months.  An epidural I njection was not effective, and weakness of one leg was significant.  I have now been told to use only acetaminiphen and attend physical therapy.  So far, I am doing pretty well.  When pain flares, i find that a heated wrap and lying down is a good solution for me.  It is very important to note that altough there are similarities among all sciatica sufferers, there are also many differences in modalities to ease the awful symptoms.  What works for one does not work for another.  It is important for all of us to strengthen core and work on balance.  Find which positions help, get plenty of rest, 

i think your doctor saying "it wii go away" and not explaing the how, what of the situation would lead me to seek a second opinion.

4

About the inner ear balance trouble, have you tried vestibular rehabilitation? There are these maneuveres that can be made. Have you tried these?

I have vertigo and nausea due to either vertigo migraine or because I have hit my head and the little things, otoconia, inside ear have gone into wrong place. It has been bit better now after my sinusitis flu has gotten better. But what I will try next time I get the dizzines and balance problem is plain simple travel sickness pills. I think I get "sea sick" sometimes just walking, and if there is some tiled pavement or such visual "trigger". Sometimes I feel like throwing up, but have not so far really done that luckily. The attack goes away if I can sit down or just stand still.

Balance is very delicate thing, but it can be improved.

Also what comes to my mind that if the feet numb from down upwards, could you have perhaps nerve inpingment in shin, where the nerve goes between the tibia and muscles. I don't recall that much problem with balance when I had sciatica.

So maybe if the nerves from the foot are themselves trapped, they would not convey information upwards and your body would not know its correct position.

I do get balace problems if I put pain killer ointment to my heels and inside my ankle (the bunch of nerves from foot all travel in the iside of the ankle). Then I have to be careful even walking to the toilet after putting on the ointment or I feel I could just plain trip over. So the painkiller numbs also the feeling of balance sensors in the ankle area, which I believe there is quite lot of them there.

Kindly note I'm not a doctor or any health professional so you might even disregard what I say. These ideas that I represent here I have come across by the way of having some own health stuff to sort out. You might have just totally something else going.

5

Hi, Thanks for replying

At home, when I have a problem with the pain,  I can just move about, sit or lie down, change position etc which eases it a bit. It's just so annoying at bedtime when I'm close to nodding off. My partner does a massage which usually helps enough to get me to sleep, but I just want to get rid of the problem.

The problems really start when I'm out in the middle of a busy town centre with hardly any seats. If I can sit down for 3 - 5 minutes the sharp pain goes off enough to move to wherever I'm heading. I'm trying to find a shopping trolley with a fold out seat on but they're all too short to pull, height-wise as I'm tall.

I had this trouble years before I had my hysterectomy, 

I'm 53.

I'm on high dose calcium with vitamin D & K to process the calcium (all in one pill) I take other suppliments too.

Due to Meniere's Disease, I have to keep my head level, (unless going to bed, which can take a while) or I end up on the floor or have a drop attack. (retraining my balance hasn't worked) Other exercise except walking causes me to have drop attacks or lose my balance, a stick helps but doesn't always work.

I had a bone density test and the results were good. (before I had MD, I swam every day and ran)

I can't take HRT, 5 close femail relatives died of breast cancer. I've got the "damaged gene" too, so have to go for regular checks.

I drink lots of water - winter or summer, my Serc tablets make me thirsty anyway.

 

6

I think that my problem is that I can't do exercise which causes me to tilt my head (MD, sugery and retraining my balance which didn't work - although I still try - It may be because I have MD in both ears like my dad)

So the only thing I can do reasonably safely is walk (I use a stick)

I've asked for a referral to a specialist.

7

My balance problem is due to not being able to feel where I'm putting my feet when the numbness starts. MD doesn't help, I wobble. I get sciatica pain at the same time as the numbness.

I saw the best specialist in the U.K. when my Meniere's was at it's worst (vertigo attacks every day, 12 hours each time, vomitting for most of that time - classic MD) I was diagnosed in 2001 after having it since 1999

So after 3 years of it I had Gentamicin by surgery to my left ear.  (there is no cure, but I thought this was the best option at the time)

It stopped the vertigo as it killed off my balance system in that ear. (it also killed off what little hearing I had left too - which wasn't much as everytime you have a MD vertigo attack your hearing goes down in the affected ear)

I started vestibular retraining the day I got out of bed after surgery. 3 days later I had a massive vertigo attack, caused by my right ear (The spins were going the opposite way, so I knew it wasn't my left ear.

The physio at our balance centre was brilliant, as was the surgeon, but nothing worked. 

I've got contact with a specialist in the US too, he says I was unlucky to get MD in my other ear just after surgery to my left ear and that trying to retrain would be near to impossible with attacks going on (my original therapist had told me to wait 2 to 3 weeks after having an attack (on left side) before doing retraining exercises as everything has to settle - trouble is my attacks never stopped longer than a week to do this. After surgery it was the same with my right ear.

I still get vertigo in my right ear, I do not want to try any more invasive surgery etc as i want to keep what hearing i have left for as long as I can.

I belong to the Meniere's Society, the facebook Meniere's group in the UK and 2 other groups in the US

I take Prochlorperazine if an attack is starting, which is a strong anti-sickness pill. I'm also on Serc (Betahistine Dihydrochloride) every day.

Your problem sounds like BPPV, which can be helped, it's just getting the movements right (a pen-friend has this)

 

8

Do you mean with shopping trolley the "real" rollator you push? I think they have a proper fixed seat. (They are about 50 EUR on ebay.)

What if you gentamycin actually caused you a bilateral vestibulopathy? I just happened to read about this at web page which says dizziness and balance, and there bilateral disorders.

So maybe you have both Menier's and then bilateral vestibulopathy?

After reading those pages I think I have the latter as well and most likely I might have gotten it due to ear infection (infection causing a vestibular neuritis...).

The pages says that if one has that condition temporary dizzines can be caused by Ibuprofen. And it just might be that my dizziness spells might have followed me taking it! Because now I have not taken it for a while and I have been quite ok.

Or then it is migraine vertigo, because I get light and sound sensitivity. (I can hear sometimes the dog eating in the kitchen when I'm about to go to sleep and the small sound of her crunching the dog food pellets hurt my ears.) This is not always happening. Very weird feeling as I would not say that I have very excellent hearing normally.

I maybe have to do a test and take some Ibuprofen...

So thanks you got me reading again about the balance problems and I found those pages!!

What I can say to you in return is that it can be that your back and leg problems may be because you are not using them in correcttly because of the balance problem. It may be a result of some muscle imbalance. That may have led to back problems and then you get the shooting pains.

Can you do indoor cycling, I mean on a static bike? That helps me with back problems because it works the long muscles of the back too.

Maybe your back and legs are overstrained trying to keep you balanced and that is the reason you get sciatica or symptoms similar to sciatica. The muscles need some real work. If they are too static or not full range movements they and ligaments start to shrink. That causes pain and stiffening and also that way different kind of nerve entrapments.

9

I'm thinking because antihistamine actually helps creatly for my back pain, so what if the Serch you take, because it increases histamine levels, which increase nerve receptor stimulation, you might be actually be feeling any sciatic pain at least more severly than normal.

Maybe that is something to look into.

Also somebody told me that vasolidating veins, like when there is low pressure weather coming on, causes aching because the weins swell in against the bony cavities where they run, and this causes the "weather bell" symptoms.

Because Serc is a drug that does that, some of the numbing, tingling could be because of that.

 

10

One more thing, do you take magnesium and eat enough salt because you drink a lot of water? Also, water intake can be improved if it contains little bit of sugar. Otherwise it just goes through. This has sport science behind it. Drinking too much water dilutes the body and that can lead to muscle issues (pains and malfunctions). So if you are thirsty try some more sugary drinks, with real sugar not that glucose syryp stuff.

11

I need a trolley with a seat which unfolds, but has floor anchor points at the front and back so it is stable when sitting on - there are loads of these on ebay and amazon and everywhere else I have looked but none are tall enough - I'm over 6 feet tall.

I've had 12 tests of various sorts over the years to rule out anything else. (Top specialist at a top clinic) Once you've had a classic MD attack you know what it is when the other ear is affected.

Every recent test shows that it is MD in my right ear (There are 7 main ones that I ticked all the boxes with - 1)nystagmus type, 2)moving towards the affected ear when marching on the spot with eyes shut (Iffy for me to do as I don't do well in dark!) 3)****** - See bottom of page.. Hypercausis in affected ear 4) eye drift towards affected ear, 5) fullness in affected ear as attack starts - some people get this hours or days before attack, I get it minutes before, 6) temporary hearing loss in affected ear while having attack, 7) losing balance in dark or at night. there are more.

I wobble because of the damage done to my left ear with the Gentamicin surgery (pump into left ear by surgically lifting eardrum for 9 days) - on purpose to stop the violent vertigo - which it did, it worked - I happily put up with the wobbles, at least I could go out without fear of a vertigo attack. I even found a job.

My loss of hearing is classic for MD in my right ear, it shows the same patterns on the audiogram graph - in fact, the specialist published my results in his latest "paper" on the subject as it was so clear cut.

i've also written several articles about MD as part of my studies to get a diploma  in  advanced studies of vestibular sciences and disorders. (I've got notes from various ENT specialists over the past 20 years or so.

So I'm content to know that I have done, and am doing as much as I can for my MD.

***** Hypercausis is what you have - sensitivity to sounds of a certain frequency. Caused by damage to the ear and your brain trying to compensate the volume giving your brain too much information.

The problem is not muscular, it's a sharp stabbing pain with the sciatica, right up the sciatic nerve (did degree level biology)

I occasionally get muscle aches if I've walked a long way or 

If i do more or less exercise, it makes no difference to the sciatica (kept a diary since it started and have tried all sorts of things)

The only thing that seems to make it worse is lying in one position for a long time during vertigo attacks - I can't move my head at all, I move the rest of me around a bit. This is something I cannot do anything about, even if my partner is here, if I have an attack (MD) I sometimes end up on the floor as I can't move to sofa or bed or bathroom until the vertigo stops. Having said that about 4 weeks ago I was on the living room floor with a MD attack, for about 10 hours. I had no trouble at all with my sciatica for 2 weeks!

Last year I had scans and xrays, nothing showed up.

I can't balance even on a static bike.

 

12

I'm down to a quarter dosage of Serc. I have been cutting down for a month as the specialist and I realise that it is doing no good.

Having said that I was on serc the first time for 3 years in 1999 with no problems.

 

13

Yes i realise what you say, I've been studying this for years.

Yes, I take magnesium. In it's bio-form which is absorbed by your system quicker. 

I have to drink as much water as I do for another medical condition, (actually it's only 2 litres, so it's not excessive) I've been doing this since 1976, with supervision from my doctor and have a self monitoring machine for all body needs. (it showed up a lack of a few minerals in the early years, that has been sorted)

My doc checks my minerals and vitamins levels every few months just to be sure and all since 1976 have been ok.

I have to be careful with salt as it increases vertigo attacks (Proven) but I make sure I have enough - again monitored by doc.

 

14

I see and I have nothing to say more but have you looked into having a rollator made just for you. For example if you are in the UK there are these small labels that handicraft bike shops. Maybe you could buy an rollator from th ebay for all the other parts and tubes could be made by someone drill skilled.

For your leg pain problem I would deduct that if that went away once, it can go away again. I would suggest you replicate everything to a tee what took place while you had the attach and you did not have the pains. It must be something you do or do not do.

Next time I will take ibuprofen I will keep an eye, or an ear, to the vertigo symptoms!

Also for a long time I suspected that paracetamol was making me lose my balance in those situations when the balance would be challenged somehow badly. I will keep an eyo on that too...

15

Hi, my other half made a rollator (he's so good with his hands lol)

He's also ordered me one of those massager contraptions that you lie on for 10 minutes, which rocks your hips gently from side to side. I tried one that a friend of his has, and had no pain walking all the way home. the pain came back a bit later on though, but not as bad. The pain does fluctuate from day to day though, even if I've been doing the same things two days running.

Funny, my mum couldn't take paracetamol without her balance going.

Take care