Have you heard of a patient who went to the doctor with pain in his head, and the doctor diagnosed his condition as a headache? And the doctor wrote him a prescription for headache? Certainly not. This sounds odd and perhaps even funny; we all know that pain in the head is "headache". And if we have a pain in the head, whose synonym is "headache" we will see the doctor to diagnose the cause of the headache and then to have a treatment plan for that cause. There is a long list of reasons for headaches by the way. Among the most important reasons are spam of the neck muscles, osteoarthritis of the neck joints, a problem in the nasal sinuses, problem in the eye, problem in the brain or the nerves of the head and face and many other reasons.
Just like head pain, which is called a headache, it is no less odd to go to the doctor complaining of pain in the back of the thigh and extending to the back of the leg as seen in the figure to get a diagnosis of sciatica, because sciatica, just like headache, is not a diagnosis for any medical condition. Sciatica is just a description of a distribution of pain in the back of thigh down to the back of the leg. In other words, sciatica is a symptom. It's not a diagnosis.
So what we really expect in the doctor’s office if we go to the clinic complaining what we have just described as sciatica, is a diagnosis for the cause of this sciatica and a treatment for that cause. Among the many causes of sciatica are spasm in the muscles in the lower back, disc prolapse in the lower back, a problem in the sacroiliac joint, or nerve inflammation in addition to other causes. The patient needs to know which of these causes is diagnoses behind the complaint of sciatica.
Conclusion: If you suffer from sciatica, that is, if you suffer from pain in the back of your right or left thigh and leg, do not return from the doctor’s office with a diagnosis of sciatica written on your prescription because this is not an achievement. You must return from the doctor's office with a diagnosis of the medical condition causing sciatica and a treatment plan for that condition.
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
Hashtag:
#hatem_eleishi
#sciatica
-------------------------------
This post was prepared and published by Dr. Hatem Eleishi. Dr. Hatem Eleishi is a professor of rheumatology at Cairo university (Egypt) and is especially dedicated to supporting arthritis patients with online educational videos and articles about arthritis causes and treatment. He also runs a rheumatology clinic in Cairo and a center for online medical consultations that, in addition to providing online rheumatology consultations, also provides online medical consultations in several different medical specialties by expert consultants from Egypt, Canada and the United States.
---------------------------
If you are interested in receiving the links of Dr. Hatem's videos to patients on your WhatsApp, kindly click here
---------------------------
To check the library of you tube videos of Dr. Hatem for patients, kindly click here
---------------------------
To watch the educational videos of Dr. Hatem on his you tube (Dr. Hatem Eleishi Arthritis channel), kindly click here
---------------------------
If you are interested in online video consultation with Dr. Hatem, kindly click on this link please