Specialist Treatment · Kentford & Newmarket
Sciatica Treatment That Actually Finds the Cause
Burning leg pain, pins and needles, weakness — sciatica is a symptom, not a diagnosis. We find what's compressing the nerve and treat that, not just the pain.
It started as an ache in your lower back. Then it travelled. Now there's a hot, electric pain shooting from your buttock down the back of your leg — sometimes into the calf, sometimes the foot. Sitting makes it worse. Driving is unbearable. You've tried sleeping with a pillow between your knees, on the floor, in the spare room. You've taken the painkillers. You've done the exercises a friend sent you. Nothing's holding.
Why Most Treatment Fails
Sciatica is the easiest condition in musculoskeletal medicine to mismanage, because the word 'sciatica' is a description, not a diagnosis. It tells you a nerve is irritated. It tells you nothing about why. GP painkillers and anti-inflammatories blunt the symptom but leave the mechanical cause — almost always disc-related — completely untouched. When the pills wear off, the leg pain returns, often worse than before.
Generic exercise sheets handed out after a 15-minute appointment usually make sciatica worse, not better. Glute bridges, hamstring stretches, planks — none of these address a compressed lumbar disc. Loading a spine that already has nerve impingement is one of the fastest ways to provoke a flare-up. We see patients every week who've spent months doing the wrong rehab and arrive convinced they've damaged themselves further. Usually they haven't — but they have wasted time.
And then there's the MRI problem. A scan reported as 'mild disc bulge L4/L5' tells you what the disc looks like; it tells you nothing about whether that's the cause of your leg pain. Half the population over 40 has disc bulges on MRI with no symptoms. Treating an image instead of a patient is how people end up with injections aimed at the wrong level — or worse, surgery they didn't need.
How We Diagnose It Differently
A proper sciatica diagnosis takes time, hands, and a brain — not a 10-minute appointment. Lee has assessed over 100,000 patients in 30 years. The history alone usually narrows the cause within minutes.
Detailed mechanical history
When did it start? What positions ease it? What positions provoke it? Sciatica from a disc behaves differently to sciatica from a piriformis or a facet joint. The story tells us where to look.
Targeted neurological examination
Reflexes, dermatomal sensation, myotomal strength, dural tension testing. This identifies which nerve root is involved and how irritated it is — the difference between 4-week recovery and 4-month recovery.
Diagnostic ultrasound where appropriate
For peripheral nerve entrapments mimicking sciatica, in-clinic ultrasound resolves what MRI often misses. We see the structure live, in real time.
Mechanism, not just the sore spot
Most clinics treat where it hurts. We treat where the problem is. The leg pain is usually a downstream symptom of a lumbar segmental issue — that's what gets resolved.
How We Treat It
Once we know what's compressing or irritating the nerve, treatment becomes specific. No generic protocols. No one-size-fits-all rehab sheets.
IDD Therapy spinal decompression
Where the cause is a disc bulge or herniation pressing on the L4, L5, or S1 nerve root, IDD Therapy is the most effective non-surgical option available. Computer-controlled distraction at the precise spinal level reduces intradiscal pressure, eases nerve compression, and allows the disc to recover. Most sciatica patients feel meaningful change within 4–6 sessions.
Specific manual therapy
Targeted mobilisation of the affected segment, soft-tissue work to the protective spasm pattern that's locked your back down, and neural mobilisation to free a tethered nerve root. Hands-on, not generic.
Condition-specific rehabilitation
Real rehab — McKenzie-based directional preference exercises, deep stabiliser retraining, and graded loading. Not glute bridges. We give you what your spine actually needs at the stage you're at.
Lifestyle and load management
Driving posture, desk setup, sleeping position, lifting mechanics. The small habits that either keep your sciatica recurring or let it heal.
Honest timelines: Most sciatica patients need 4–8 sessions. Some respond in 3, particularly recent-onset cases. Long-standing or post-surgical sciatica may need 8–12. We'll tell you honestly after the first assessment what range you're likely in — and we don't keep treating once you're better.
Representative case
What Recovery Looks Like in Practice
- Patient
- Male, mid-50s, regional sales role with 25,000 miles a year of driving. Active — runs, cycles, walks the dog daily.
- Presentation
- 8 weeks of right buttock and posterior thigh pain, worsening over the previous fortnight. Pins and needles in the outer calf. Could not sit for more than 15 minutes without shifting. Sleep disrupted. Two courses of GP painkillers and four physio sessions of generic stretches with no improvement.
- Diagnosis
- Right L5 nerve root irritation secondary to a posterolateral L4/L5 disc bulge. Confirmed clinically — neurological signs matched the dermatome and myotome cleanly. MRI was reviewed but, importantly, was not the basis of diagnosis.
- Treatment
- Course of 6 IDD Therapy sessions over 4 weeks, combined with directional-preference rehab, neural glides, and driving-posture correction. Painkillers stopped after session 3.
- Outcome
- Buttock and thigh pain gone by session 5. Pins and needles resolved by session 7. Discharged with a maintenance home programme. Returned to running at 8 weeks. Still pain-free at 12-month follow-up.
Composite case based on the typical patient profile we treat. Individual outcomes vary.
Transparent Pricing
Initial Assessment
£70
Full history, examination & treatment plan
Treatment Session
£55
Hands-on treatment & rehab
Typical Course
4–8
Sessions for most patients
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my sciatica from a disc or something else?
Most commonly it's a disc — around 80–90% of true sciatica cases involve a lumbar disc compressing a nerve root. The rest can be facet joint irritation, piriformis syndrome, sacroiliac referral, or a peripheral entrapment lower down the leg. The history and examination tell us which. We won't guess.
Will IDD Therapy work if I've had back surgery before?
In many cases, yes. Post-surgical patients with adjacent-level disc problems or recurrent symptoms often respond well, provided there's no metalwork at the level we'd be treating. We assess each post-surgical case individually and won't proceed if it's not appropriate.
How many sessions will I need?
Typical course is 4–8 sessions. Recent-onset sciatica often resolves at the lower end. Long-standing cases (more than 6 months) usually need 6–10. We give you a clear estimate after your first assessment and review progress every few sessions.
Can I exercise through sciatica?
Some movement is helpful — walking, in particular, often eases sciatica. What you should not do is push through pain with generic gym exercises, deadlifts, planks, or aggressive stretching. We give you specific exercises that match your stage of recovery and stop the things making it worse.
Do I need an MRI before I come?
No. The vast majority of sciatica is diagnosed clinically. We'll refer for imaging if there's a clinical reason — red-flag signs, no progress with treatment, or surgical candidacy. Most patients never need a scan to recover.
How quickly will I feel improvement?
Many patients notice a reduction in leg pain within the first 2–3 sessions. Numbness and pins and needles take longer — nerves heal slowly. We measure progress in three ways: pain, function (sitting, driving, sleep), and neurological signs. All three should be moving in the right direction by week 3.
Related Conditions We Treat
Get the Diagnosis That Actually Explains Your Pain
Stop guessing. Book a proper assessment with Lee and the BodyCare team.