Do you suffer from various sciatica prohibitions? Are there many things you simply can not do because of your pain? How is sciatica holding you back from achieving everything you want to do in life?
If you are like most people who have sciatica, you have a long list of activities that you tend to avoid, since they seem to make your symptoms worse. These activities are called prohibitions or limitations. Unfortunately, these things are often beloved pastimes or things people aspire to do and now feel self-limited in what they can achieve in life.
This important discussion focuses on the limitations self-imposed by many sciatica patients. We will detail why these limitations occur and their relevance to the complete clinical picture of the condition.
What Are Sciatica Prohibitions?
Prohibitions are activities that actually exacerbate pain or are suspected of exacerbating pain. Prohibitions can also be activities that involve the fear of exacerbated pain, despite never being done before or never actually increasing symptomatic activity before. In essence, any activity, posture or occurrence that is avoided due to fear or pain can be considered a limitation caused by sciatica.
Some prohibitions are created when a person undertakes an activity and suffers pain. The more this happens, the more anxiety people generally hold concerning activities that have similar potential for symptom generation. Over time, people tend to project this fear onto many activities and view them as prohibitions, even if they have never tried them before or suffered pain from them previously.
In similar regard, many care providers will also warn patients to avoid specific or general types of activity. These activities now become limitations as well, due to implied risk and nocebo effect of the care provider’s guidance.
Self-Imposed Sciatica Conditioning
Many patients get caught up in endless cycles of prohibitions over time. They analyze every activity they even consider undertaking for its symptomatic potential and tend to avoid more and more activities over time due to fear, more than actual pain. Remember that fear is a primary consequence of chronic sciatica pain and the anxiety caused is just as limiting as the pain itself and more so in some people…
Conditioned responses are also a normal part of chronic pain. Patients learn that risks will often be punished with pain. Well, what is risky? Anything. Everything. The end result for many people is a self-imposed state of extreme fear and practical disability due to the anxiety that pain will occur if virtually any activity is performed that may induce suffering. This is a very serious consequence and one that is rarely considered or discussed in traditional medical circles. I see this consequence every day as part of my practice and it is so incredibly sad to me… The limitations on life are so severe that some patients seem content to just stay in bed and wait to die rather than live to any meaningful degree. This is the extreme power of fear and anxiety created by chronic pain.
Breaking Sciatica Prohibitions
It is certainly possible to overcome programmed and conditioned behaviors, including fear of activity. Chronic pain is so powerful because it exerts such tremendous influence over life and functionality. If you can remove the fear of pain and become active in life, you will certainly find your symptoms getting better, instead of worse. This is a proven fact and I can attest to it based on my extensive experience working with chronic pain sufferers for decades now.
In order to take life back, you need to rein in your fear and not allow the pain to control you. You have suffered pain in the past. You might be suffering right now. You will suffer again in the future. This is a given. However, you do not need to surrender your life in the hope to ward off pain, since this is not going to occur anyway.
Get back involved in life. Start small and be brave. Feel the fear and anxiety and allow it to just exist. Do not deny it or try to get it out of your mind. Become comfortable with the fear and just push ahead anyway. This is step one. If you want to learn much, much more about the power of conditioning and prohibitions related to chronic pain, as well as how to completely overcome them and reclaim a full and active life, you will love our proprietary and peer-acclaimed pain program. It is available 24/7 to help you right now, anywhere in the world.
Sciatica > Alternative Medicine for Sciatica > Sciatica Prohibitions
