Somewhere along the line last week, I tweaked my back. Most likely from going up and down the ladder and carrying heavy bins to and from the attic. The result was inflammation and pressure against my sciatic nerve. I hardly slept for three days and the pain was starting to radiate down the front and back of my legs. I for sure was not going to take a chance by visiting the chiropractor office during this lock down, so I decided to see if I could somehow work through this myself.
At this point, nothing I did seemed to work. Ice, hot showers, laying on the floor, stretching, ibuprofen, etc. all failed to give me any relief. I finally started experimenting with new stretches specifically for sciatica that I found on YouTube. I performed about half dozen different stretches for a couple days with no relief, until I finally found one that started working. It's called the McKenzie press up exercise. It's a stretch you perform while laying on your stomach. You press up with your arms almost like a push up, never allowing your pelvis to leave the floor.I tried this stretch one evening before going to bed. I immediately felt good enough to fall asleep quickly, but woke up in pain a few hours later. I did notice however that the pain was now totally gone from my right leg. The next morning I did another set of three stretches, and could feel that my range of flexibility was greatly increased. I was able to arch my back really well, and after the second stretch, the pain in my lower back faded. I followed this up with a yoga stretch my Bride taught me called 'Child Pose'. When I stood up I was totally shocked to feel absolutely no pain in my back or legs.
Could this really have worked that fast? I kept expecting the pain to come back all day and it never did. I went for a nice long walk, two bike rides, and even messed around with the hacky sack in my garage for awhile! So while I've stayed somewhat active during this lock down, my back and joints haven't really been getting the attention they needed. There's another warm sunny day on the books.. so I think I will do some low impact activity in the pool this afternoon. I'm also going to continue these stretches, and for the time being, will do them several times a day.
If you have lower back pain, I highly recommend the McKenzie stretch. It may not work for everyone, but it's definitely meant to help several lower back conditions. I sure was thanking the maker for the relief I got from it! Below is a great video that explains the technique..