Fucking hell! Sciatica buttock pain

[vipersnest1]

I have a muscle that keeps going into spasm. It’s been going on for weeks now and when it decides to play up, I wake up in extreme pain and it can also kick in during the day - today is a particularly bad one.
GP wouldn’t help and told me to refer myself to physio - MSK team aren’t interested and didn’t suggest anything.
Apparently they will call me at some point (!)
I want to either climb the walls or cry.
I can’t take anti-inflammatories as my gut can’t tolerate them. Paracetamol doesn’t help. I do have opioid painkillers which do take away the pain but I end up in Lala land if I take them so am holding off (plus I try not to take them unless I’m desperate).
Any suggestions?

I had this. Sorted it with acupuncture, deep tissue massage by the physio (painful but works) and hot and cold packs.

Have you tried Voltarol gel on the area if you can’t take anti inflammatories internally.

Also recommend osteopathy, getting realigned gently always helps me.

Also wearing orthopaedics shoes helps, I like Vionics.

Oh and if you have pain driving long journeys, a cushion is a game changer. Just google ‘sciatica bum cushion’ or similar and it will throw up loads of options. I use mine all the time now.

Can you pay for physio or an osteopath rather than waiting for the referral? Pilates really helped mine.

Get a massage ball and lie on it pressing into the spot that hurts. Roll iit to massage it. Also look up NHS sciatica exercises and do them twice a day, every day. I have cured mine this way.

Things that have helped me recover: regular yoga, daily stretching, alternate hot/cold, lying on the trigger-point ball in the exact spot where the muscle is in spasm, strengthening my core through weight training, and a standing desk to work from home. The more I sit, the worse it gets - the less I sit, the better it gets.

I slipped a disc in my back just over three years ago as was in constant agony until I had surgery last July. During that time, I couldn’t have coped without my TENS machine, and wore it constantly when I wasn’t in bed. Acupuncture also made a huge difference. I found the most effective pain relief medication by far was codeine.

Can you see a private physio? It'll be about £40-50 but you'll likely only need a couple of sessions.

I had piriformis syndrome which was a pretty constant pain in the arse (and down my thigh) but it would occasionally become completely incapacitating with shooting pains into my foot, and I would be on the floor with it.
An osteopath fixed it in a couple of sessions and, although I can still get a bit achey if I do too much sitting, it has never reverted to being as bad as before. It basically goes away now if I just get moving more and do Pilates.
It’s not free of course. Mine charges £60 a session but she fixed me in 3 appointments and I was left just feeling cross with myself for not tackling it earlier. I spent about 2 years in fairly constant low level pain before I got desperate enough to try an osteopath.

Gabapentin will kill the pain.