So I don’t have sciatica. Or rather I DO, but on top of that (because life is shitty that way sometimes, especially when it comes to MY life), I have something called piriformis syndrome.
Basically what the doctor told me yesterday was that my piriformis muscle was severely inflamed and spastic, which was causing my sciatic nerve (which lies under the piriformis at the top) to be inflamed and spastic, thus the intense (and by intense I mean that labor pains are only slightly less intense and I can’t think of a better word than intense to describe this) pain I was in. I got to have my butt cheek ultrasounded and watched on the monitor as my muscle went all spasm-y. That was kind of cool. So the orthopedist gave me two different kinds of painkiller (one of which is an opioid) and a muscle relaxer. NONE of which I can take BEFORE work because they make me kind of sleepy. So work was…interesting. I swallowed a couple of the prescription strength Aleve my regular gave me last week and chased it with 4 ibuprofen midway through the day. I was still in pain, but it wasn’t AS bad as feeling like my butt cheek was being ripped off by a wolverine while The Incredible Hulk twisted my piriformis muscle like he was twisting a bread tie.
Hopefully after a few weeks of medication and some physical therapy, this will sort of go away. I’m skeptically hopeful at this point that it will eventually stop hurting and I can go back to the gym and stuff.