Sciatic pain/spasms at night - can I do anything?

[Celen]

I'm currently suffering my third bout of sciatica. During the day, the pain is manageable with exercise and medication but at night time, the spasms & pain really hit hard.

I'm planning on going to the gps hopefully this week but it's come on quite fast this time round and I don't know how to get through another two nights without help!

Any ideas? I know it's quite commonly suffered on MN but I'm unsure of which stretches would do more harm than good when I google...please can anyone advise me?

Thank you

Hi Gelen , try the back thread on here- lots of good advice and shared experiences. I don't know how to deal with sciatica- does it respond to painkillers? If you cannot see a doc to get something like a strong painkiller for few days, you can take paracetamol with codeine AND ibuprofen with codeine and this will be quite a good strength of analgesia. My sympathies as sciatica is very painful, my sister and mum had it repeatedly

A hot water bottle as hot as you can stand it.

You gave my sincere sympathies. Sciatica is horrible. I hope you feel better soon.

Have.....flippin autocorrect

Thanks Maizie and Marshy, I'll take a look at the back thread. I'm already taking all those you mention Maizie and actually had a better night last night, maybe I just need a few days for the painkillers to kick in.

Thanks both

Amitriptyine is a helpful med for nerve pain and has the additional bonus of making you feel sleepy. It can cause a hangover effect until you get used to it and can take a little while to build up but I would recommend asking your GP for a trail.

Sciatica doesn't respond very well to opiates unfortunately. Agree with very hot hot water bottle. Hope you feel better soon.

I wonder if TENS would help as I find it similar to heat in its effect and what pain it helps. Worth a try. If you find heat helps and need to go out, get a heat patch from boots or pound shops (yes weirdly they stock pretty good ones) and u can stick it to outside of knickers or inside tights. Hope you get it under control soon