After helping 100’s of people who suffer from painful sciatica and battling it myself when I was younger…

I can you tell there’s probably no more aggravating form of back pain.

Sometimes you can’t sit. Sometimes you can’t stand. Sometimes you can’t walk or drive. Or even lie in bed.

The pain is simply wretched.

A couple days ago, someone came into our clinic on her hands and knees. It was the only way she could find relief.

She was in tears. The pain radiating down her legs was unbearable.

She actually inspired today’s article. Today I’m going to tell you what I told her…

Every week in fact, my clinics and programs are a destination for people from all walks of life who suffer from sciatica.

The first thing you should appreciate is sciatica is not a disease. That’s right.

Allow me to be clear about this, because it’s important:

“Sciatica” is not a diagnosis.

If you’re seeing a doctor and they’re telling you that’s what you have, you’re not being told the whole truth.

(I have doctors who are in pain visit my clinics, so I know.)

Let’s put it this way:

Sciatica is a symptom. The doctor is only labeling a symptom. They’re not telling you what is actually wrong!

Now when they put a label your pain, I totally get how good that makes you feel in the moment.

What happens next?

They prescribe some heavy duty Ibuprofen to calm the inflammation, maybe ship you off to a physical therapist, and then they’re onto the next patient.

And you already know how that works, don’t we?

Let’s face it:

The Reality is a Lot of Doctors Fail to Fix Their Sciatica Patients

They return repeatedly with the same pain, the same issue, the same cry for help.

The doctor eventually begins to wonder whether the patient even wants to get better.

Imagine that! It doesn’t quite occur to them it could be the treatment that’s not working.

And that’s because their “Sciatica” diagnosis just becomes an easy way of sending the patient home happy.

For the record…

Sciatica is the term that describes symptoms of pain that begins in the lower back and extends down through your butt, thigh, and sometimes as far as your foot.

Mostly likely, that tingling or painful sensation going down your leg is caused upstream in your spine… such as:

A disc irritating, compressing or pinching a nerve…

A facet joint at the back of a vertebra which is out of alignment…

A strained back muscle spasming and painfully squeezing a nearby nerve or nerve sheathe…

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Multiply these issues by the number of vertebrae and muscles in the back and…

You can appreciate how much work it can be to accurately diagnose the root problem. Even with technology like MRIs.

Which is why most doctors feel they’re doing the best they can with the resources available.

That’s why I prefer to take a more self-directed, holistic approach to fixing sciatica.

So… How Do We Fix the Pain and Numbness?

Recently, a successful yoga instructor came to my clinic and…

Even after decades of yoga, for some reason, she still suffered with sciatica.

I don’t know about you, but I was under the impression that yoga instructors and their active, stretch-filled, muscle-focused, posture-perfect lifestyle…

… Would be the LAST PEOPLE ON EARTH to experience back pain.

Actually, I was rather shocked.

If a 45-year old, healthy yoga instructor can be dealt a crippling back pain blow…

What does this say about the rest of us?

Here’s Michelle’s inspiring story in her own words.

I think it’ll inspire hope if you’re also suffering…

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I was feeling very weak in my core area. And I was having pain radiating down in my lower back.

I was going to the doctors and they were telling me things like “you need to have disc replacement.”

You need to be on these pain medications…

And they wanted to basically put me through a lot of surgical procedures…

And I didn’t want to do ANY of that. But the pain was so bad… I needed some relief.

So I went to two neurosurgeons and a back pain specialist.

The surgeons wanted to operate on me in different places… and the back pain specialist wanted to do various procedures including implanting something permanent in my spine.

I’ve had 4 procedures that involved needles in my spine. It only gave me a little bit of temporary relief for couple of days. But it didn’t cure or really help anything.

It just put a band-aid on the pain for couple of days and that was it.

However, after my first session with Ian, I felt an opening in my back that I haven’t felt in a long time.

I felt stronger to my core and I felt the radiating burning heat pain I was feeling seem to dissipate a little bit.

It seemed to just open up my back in general.

And then after my second session, I noticed EVEN MORE the stretch in my lower back and more strengthening in muscles that had been weak that I think might help support my lower back.

I was VERY SKEPTICAL about doing Ian’s methods.

Because, as a yoga instructor, I feel very knowledgeable in anatomy. And how to help people that come to me in pain.

But I was unaware of certain muscles that I was not using in the body that might help my lower back.

How did we help Michelle? Or maybe more aptly, how did Michelle help herself?

She did 8 specific movements…

These 8 movements are totally unlike “the sheets” of exercises you get from chiropractors or doctors.

Instead, we “wake up” certain muscles and restore muscle balance. That’s key.

Then in certain areas of her back, we jump-started pathways so vital oxygen and nutrition could get in and help her heal.

That’s the holistic way to relieve and remove sciatica.

It’s not uncommon, but in Michelle’s case, it took just two 30-minute sessions.

Two 30-minute sessions and she was completely out of pain.

Yes, there are ways to get out of pain. They don’t require medication, surgery or injections. They don’t require months of physiotherapy.

You just have to restore your body’s natural functional movement and muscle balance and allow it to heal naturally.