Fighting My Way Back – BionicOldGuy

After a recent flare-up of sciatica, I took a week off from riding or other exercise. It was painful to walk for a few days and then I tried using a walker that I had lying around from a previous injury and it helps a lot. Conventional walkers don’t do so well outside, although I replaced the tips on the back legs with Teflon “ski tips” which glide better. So I treated myself to a “rollator” style walker that has four wheels so it rolls better and brakes for safety. These are surprisingly cheap these days. I also like that it has a folding seat. So I do a lot better in situations like shopping because I can take a break whenever I want.

After a week I slowly got back to cycling, but only when lying down, not sure the sore side is ready for the saddle. I started with 30 minutes and now I have increased my journey to over an hour. Easy, just low resistance high cadence. Turns out my upper body training doesn’t bother the sciatic side at all so I can do that too. And I spin for about 5 minutes on my indoor cycle several times a day to warm up the muscles. I also stretch the piriformis muscle on the side of my sciatica multiple times a day, and every night I do the PT exercise I was given for piriformis syndrome. At first I only did stretching, but now I’ve started to add strengthening.

With all this, it begins to occur. The muscle itself is still sore and stiff when I first wake up in the morning, but it feels better when I warm it up. And there is much less severe pain going down the leg so I think the piriformis relaxes and doesn’t press as much on the sciatic nerve.

I’m still not ready for longer rides with my group, but it’s a short ride to where they’re going for lunch, so I ride out and meet them there, which I’ll do later this morning.