Doctors consider the pain from sciatica as being structural in nature and whether it comes from the muscles in the buttocks, the discs between the spines or the bones in the spine, the pain is generated by pressure on the sciatic nerve that irritates and inflames it.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sees sciatica as aggravated/caused by one of the following problems:

Damp or cold weather aggravates the sciatic pain.

Damp or cold vital energy (qi) can enter the acupuncture meridians and produce pain that can be described as heavy and dull traveling from the lower back down to the heel or any point in between. This is a type of sciatic pain that is exacerbated by damp or cold climate. A lot of pains or aches actually do occur or are aggravated in damp or cold environment, not only sciatica. A lot of arthritic problems fall within this category.

Acupuncture combined with a technique known as moxibustion that uses moxa (mugwort or Ai Ye, in Chinese), is usually utilized by TCM practitioners to heal sciatica. Moxibustion is the process of burning moxa over the affected acupuncture points or meridians to generate heat in the body. The mugwort is traditionally made in a cigar shape manner and its hot part concentrated on the ailing part of the body. Moxa comes in several sizes and shapes.

Another herbal remedy can be used to battle sciatica exacerbated by damp or cold weather. This formula is known to be dry and warm in essence and can help relieve the joint, nerve and/or muscle pain that damp or cold weather causes.

Sciatica aggravated by fatigue and is better in the morning but worse in the evening.

The kind of sciatic pain is caused by Kidney or Liver Qi deficiency.

Unlike other health conditions that cause sciatica, deficiency syndromes usually entail treatment that may take a longer time to resolve. To figure out if your sciatica is caused by a deficiency, one of the tell-tale signs you should be experiencing besides the pain is fatigue. Deficiency syndromes often progress slowly and tend to last longer, which means this type of sciatica is a longstanding or chronic condition and not an issue that suddenly strikes you overnight.

For sciatica that is combined with fatigue, acupuncturists perform acupuncture and prescribe herbal medicines that are quite effective in treating this condition. Deficiency in Yang, Yin, Blood or Qi is basically the four types of deficiency conditions that can be diagnosed by acupuncturists and other TCM practitioners in Bellingham. If the acupuncturist or practitioner is unable to get a diagnosis, the next best thing they can do is provide the patient with a formula to get rid of the pain. A formula known as Chin Gui Shen Qi Wan is one of the most popular and effective herbal remedies for sciatica. The Qi in the label may stand for Qi energy although it can also be helpful for treating Yang deficiency. Chin Gui Shen Qi Wan is around 1,800 years old.

Sciatica pain aggravated by sitting still and worse in the morning

This type of sciatica is genuinely structural in nature. According to TCM, this condition is due to a stagnation of blood caused by a trauma that is localized. The trauma may be because you’ve been sitting on a car chair that does not have enough cushioning on it, you’ve hurt yourself in a vehicle accident, or you’ve pulled a muscle. A condition such as a displaced disc can fall within this category as well.

The sciatic nerve is irritated by a structural condition that causes something to impinge on it. The pain can also be due to a muscle spasms or an impingement as the nerve traverses through the buttocks. If you suffer from this type of sciatic pain, it probably will be good for you to move around. The pain is severe in the morning since you’ve hardly moved at all while asleep during the night. Also, the lack of movement last night means that qi or blood hasn’t properly flowed during those times. Activity or movement will thus be helpful in relieving this type of sciatica which is the most treatable of all sciatic problems with acupuncture.

Treatments

Acupuncture

With the use of very slender needles that are inserted along the affected acupuncture points or meridians, acupuncture helps restore movement of Qi or energy and clears the external pathogen to relieve the pain. Other meridians in the body are also needled to remove the wind, cold or damp that may have spread out into other parts of the body, more notable in the Urinary Bladder meridian.

Another offshoot of acupuncture known as electric stimulation or electro-stim,” for short, can be applied on the needles that affect the joint, muscles or nerves on the leg to make the treatment more potent and effective. Electro-stim is a relatively new medical innovation used to enhance acupuncture therapy. Electro-sim is not considered to be strictly “traditional Chinese medicine”, although it is now a growing a medical tool used in many acupuncture clinics. The theory behind this is that by using mild pulses of electricity, the affected nerves are over stimulated by electrical shock that does not generate pain. This over-stimulation causes the affected nerves to numb down their own sensitivity which helps lower the severity of the pain in the nerves. This theory is actually the one that acupuncture anesthesia follows and which now is used to benefit sciatica patients, as well.

Ear Acupuncture

One other form of acupuncture that can help those with sciatic pain is ear acupuncture. After the needles have been removed on the ear, seeds can be taped there to sustain the stimulation started by the needles. In place of seeds, magnets can even be used where therapeutic effects can be felt for a few days more.

Tui Na (Chinese Massage)

There is no question massage can do a world of good for sciatica patients. Licensed Tui Na practitioners provide Chinese massage to sciatica patients performing massages for about 20 minutes or more once each day to help relieve the pain and rectify the impingement on the nerves.