Treating Sciatica

Since we are seeing an uptick in sciatica patients lately I wanted to cover briefly how we treat it. We have developed our own method of treating sciatica by treating hundreds of patients with this issue over 15 years. We do 4 things that we feel are, together, an effective protocol. With acupuncture we treat the path of the pain, the lower back (whether it hurts or not) and use auricular (ear) acupuncture to also treat to root of the problem which is usually a disk issue in the L3 to L5 area of the spine. We then use cupping along the path of the pain and also in the low back area to release the muscles and reestablish proper blood flow. The results of doing these things are usually quick and effective. Most patients feel a good deal better after a couple of visits. In tough cases we will often add a favorite Chinese herbal formulation to speed up healing.