sciatica pain and exercise

If you’re doing exercises or other activities that irritates the nerve leading to pain, then yes. And whatever activities you’re doing may be inappropriate for someone with an L5 disc bulge. Physical Therapist is your best bet as I presume you’ve seen a doctor already.

Yup. If the sciatic nerve is rubbed on. Which is the whole point. It wouldn't be sciatica except for some reason that nerve is trapped, pinched, rubbed on, something like that. There's also Piraformis which is when the same nerve (sciatic) is trapped by the piraformis muscle. Different things can pinch the sciatic nerve, but the result is sciatica. If dancing makes it worse, I think the best you can hope for is different dance moves. A Physical Therapist would know best how to advise, I think. Though it should be one who specialized in Sciatica. What most doctors will never tell you is that eventually that sciatic nerve is supposed to wear out from being a major pain to your life. Time being compressed renders it less painful. Which doesn't help now, does it? Mine was a result of a bad chiropractic move, way down the back of my pelvis, in 2009. I had to literally sit on a rolled up thick foam matt, duct taped to stay that way as anything touching the back of that leg hurt terrible. I couldn't sit on chairs normal for years. And that throws off the back. Now, it's not a problem except rarely. Not much comfort except for the part where it does cease to impair one's lifestyle, if you live long enough. Gabepentin helps me. lidocaine patches helped me. Diclofenac patches on the spot helped the most, but they are prescription strength NSAID, and too much of that stuff can raise blood pressure. But they do work. Also, you can buy Voltaren (or the generic) diclofenac gel and smear a bunch of it on the spot that hurts the most, and even down your leg if it's doing that. It comes with a visual aid so you don't overdose yourself, and instructions. Of course, there's controlled substances, but that more rescue then daily. I've had steroid interventional injections for it, and 2 out of 3 were helpful. If your ins pays for that, it's risky but worth a try during these years before it wears out. Good luck.

I had four herniated discs and sciatica years ago, all thankfully resolved non-surgically since. To me, it seems reasonable to not do anything that causes or triggers pain as, well, isn't that one of the body's ways of letting us know that something is making something worse?

I avoided the strongly recommended surgery by doing a lot of PT and other things like acupuncture and paying close attention to the results, tweaking the therapies in line with what seemed to work. It was a pro footballer who reminded me of this intelligence when he, at the insistence of his coach, 'powered through' an injury instead of working with his body to heal. The 'powering through' left him far worse off and ended his career of course. I found the books by Dr. Sarno helpful in separating, in a sense, pain that merited my attention and stress-related "pain" that I could safely work around. But the important thing is to work with your body's own intelligence and feedback loop.

Thank you so much for the reply. I've decided to back out of the dance performance and concentrate on my sciatica problem. I've scheduled spinal fusion for next month.

Thank you for the reply. I can see that you had immense pain ... and what a shame it came from a medical treatment! I take Gabepentin and it helps. I'm also in day 4 of a Medrol dose pak sequence and it's helping a lot. I'm guessing that the pain level will go up after the last day, day 6. When you say the sciatica nerve wears out, does that mean it stops sending pain signals down the affected leg?

Hope you’ve exhausted all other avenues before making that decision? And after surgery do not ever stop being active. The more you move and maintain your core strength the better off you’ll be following surgery in the long run. I’m 70 and paying the price with OA of whole spine but my surgery was a long time ago. Good luck with whatever you end up doing.

Thank you for the reply. It was very interesting, as it's my nature to 'power thru' roadblocks, be they physical or otherwise. I've canceled the dance performance, and though it's disappointing, I am relieved. I've scheduled spinal fusion for August, but of course if I knew of a course of treatment that was non-surgical that worked, I'd for sure want to do that.