Sciatic Type Symptoms - Help

[Ruhlfreak55]

Hi all. I've been dealing with numbness/tingling in my right leg for almost 3 and a half months now and am kind of at my wits end with it.
The hip on that side has also had issue for the last 3 years or so, but that I can work with. This basically keeps me from doing almost any axial loading of the back at all. I can't free squat, I can't really deadlift. And as I've tried to add them back bad things happen the next day it seems.

I've had an mri on the lumbar spine, and doc says there's nothing there (granted it was a lying down mri, but also my symptoms never 100% go away really). She had done the piriformis tests on me in the office and I wasn't really positive for them, but now she is going back to that being a possibility.

Have any of you guys had anything like this and how did it turn out? I'm starting to get extremely depressed and don't really see how it ends up positively. I've thought about doing prp or stem cell on discs....but if the issues don't show on an mri I"m not sure how we'd decide which one(s) to do.

I'm used to doing at the very least 495 on squat and deadlift every week, so this is killing me.

 

[johnjuanb1]

That’s weird the MRI doesn’t show a lack of space for your nerves in the spine. It sure sounds like the nerves are being impinged.

 

[Ruhlfreak55]

That’s weird the MRI doesn’t show a lack of space for your nerves in the spine. It sure sounds like the nerves are being impinged.

I'm concerned, as Dr McGill say in a lot of his books, that a lying down MRI won't show stuff like this, when unloaded the discs suck back in, or at least lay normal.

 

[johnjuanb1]

I'm concerned, as Dr McGill say in a lot of his books, that a lying down MRI won't show stuff like this, when unloaded the discs suck back in, or at least lay normal.

That sounds very logical.

 

[maldorf]

I started to get that in my left foot, numbness. I started going to the chiropractor and he does some simple manipulation and puts me on the decompression table. That helps a lot. I also bought an inversion table for my home and hang on that every day after I lift. I have a Teeter brand I bought off of Amazon.

My tingling went away after just a couple of treatments at the chiropractor. Now I avoid deadlifts and squats. I do belt squats and they work great. If you have a belt squat machine I recommend you use that in place of squats at least until you are pain free.

 

[Ruhlfreak55]

I started to get that in my left foot, numbness. I started going to the chiropractor and he does some simple manipulation and puts me on the decompression table. That helps a lot. I also bought an inversion table for my home and hang on that every day after I lift. I have a Teeter brand I bought off of Amazon.

My tingling went away after just a couple of treatments at the chiropractor. Now I avoid deadlifts and squats. I do belt squats and they work great. If you have a belt squat machine I recommend you use that in place of squats at least until you are pain free.

The chiro I think actually contributed to this. The last 4 times I got adjusted (2 different chiropractors) is when the real onset of these symptoms happened, culminating with the last time at the end of July when they did not go away.

I have an inversion table, it doesn't seem to do anything. I also bought a reverse hyper, it does seem to do something, but very temporary. Unfortunately my regular gym doesn't have a belt squat. I have been doing different split squat versions instead of free squats which don't seem to be as bad.

 

[maldorf]

The chiro I think actually contributed to this. The last 4 times I got adjusted (2 different chiropractors) is when the real onset of these symptoms happened, culminating with the last time at the end of July when they did not go away.

I have an inversion table, it doesn't seem to do anything. I also bought a reverse hyper, it does seem to do something, but very temporary. Unfortunately my regular gym doesn't have a belt squat. I have been doing different split squat versions instead of free squats which don't seem to be as bad.

Sorry to hear this. Sounds like your problem is either worse than mine or a different issue. My back continues to get better each week I lift now. The gym I joined has a nice machine that works my low back, it moves like an ab machine but in reverse. I use that one leg workout and then the next time I do stiff leg deadlifts with the keiser machine pulling on my bar. If you can find keiser at a gym it might help you some. It uses a piston with air in it for the resistance, so during the part of the movement where you are strongest the resistance is the highest and where you are weak it is less. Seems to work well for the stiff deads.


There is a really nice machine called the swing squat out there too, it would work well for you if you can find it. Really rare though. I wish you had a belt squat there.

 

[upeccmi]

I have been diagnosed with severe spinal stenosis with inpingement. I had the sciatica down the leg for several years, I couldn't walk much without having to stretch in the middle of the street. I had some real bad pinched nerves, I couldn't get out of bed for 3 weeks, they want to fuse 2 levels of the spine (I have refused). Anyway, I went to this back pain center where they did chiro, massage, power decompression and acupuncture, since then I haven't had the sciatica in 3 years, if it flares up some, I hang on my home inversion and do light hypers and stretching at the gym and it goes away. I still need the fusion as I can't do much manual labor anymore and have learned to stop when it starts with the pain. Of course no more squats or deadlifts, my gym has a pit shark.

 

[maldorf]

I have been diagnosed with severe spinal stenosis with inpingement. I had the sciatica down the leg for several years, I couldn't walk much without having to stretch in the middle of the street. I had some real bad pinched nerves, I couldn't get out of bed for 3 weeks, they want to fuse 2 levels of the spine (I have refused). Anyway, I went to this back pain center where they did chiro, massage, power decompression and acupuncture, since then I haven't had the sciatica in 3 years, if it flares up some, I hang on my home inversion and do light hypers and stretching at the gym and it goes away. I still need the fusion as I can't do much manual labor anymore and have learned to stop when it starts with the pain. Of course no more squats or deadlifts, my gym has a pit shark.

Nice, that pit shark is basically a belt squat but looks like you can do more on it than just squat.

 

[upeccmi]

Nice, that pit shark is basically a belt squat but looks like you can do more on it than just squat.

Yeah for a guy like me with old man knees and back, this is a god sent machine for me.

 

[maldorf]

Yeah for a guy like me with old man knees and back, this is a god sent machine for me.

This is what I use now because of my bad low back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=UyqhtkgPdIc

 

[Ruhlfreak55]

This is what I use now because of my bad low back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=UyqhtkgPdIc

Wait....Keiser still exists? I've literally only ever seen like one of their machines. My gym has their calf machine but that's the only one I've ever seen in any gym. That I remember anyway

 

[maldorf]

Wait....Keiser still exists? I've literally only ever seen like one of their machines. My gym has their calf machine but that's the only one I've ever seen in any gym. That I remember anyway

Yeah, the gym I am at has about two dozen machines or more. Two of some of them. He really likes it. There is a room in the back that has an air compressor that basically powers all of the machines. It is amazing.