Sciatica is a condition where you feel the pain that can start in the lower back, travel through the hip and buttocks, and even down your leg all the way to your big toe. This pain can radiate down the leg and has been described as being "like fire" or "electricity". The pain can also be more localized to a specific area along the sciatic nerve's path. Wherever it occurs, it is painful, scary, and sometimes confusing to determine what may be causing it. The good news is up to 90% of people recover from sciatica without surgery.

The sciatic nerve itself: it starts in the lower back, branching off from the L4/5 and L5/S1 disc regions and also S1-S3 regions in the coccyx. The nerve runs through your hips and buttocks and down your leg, which is why you feel the pain in those areas. The pain is created when there is pressure or compression on the nerve, either at its root in your lower back or at any point along the nerve's path.

Instability in your hips and lower back can cause you to have a herniated disc which can then compress on the sciatic nerve's origins. Herniated discs are like when you squeeze one side of a water balloon and a bubble pops out the other side. That protrusion can put pressure on the sciatic nerve and the nerve can react by sending shooting pain down its path.

You can also get sciatic pain if your SI joint is offset, which can put pressure on the sciatic nerve's origins. The SI joint is where your hip bones meet your coccyx or tailbone. If one hip is lifted, then it can cause compression on one side of the discs in the lower back. This, in turn, can heighten the chances that those discs can herniate. If the SI joint or your hips are off, the piriformis and hamstring muscles will spasm, creating even more sciatic pain.

This video is about a client Craig Zuckerman treated who came to him with severe sciatica. The client had previously had sciatica due to a herniated disc in his lower back and had surgery to correct it. Unfortunately, sciatica came back just a year and a half after his surgery. The reason for this is the surgery never got to the root cause of the problem - the thing that had created the herniation in the first place. Craig was able to find the true cause of the problem, and you will be surprised by the culprit. It's something many of us use on a daily basis.