Sciatica Treatment - What's The Fastest Sciatica Treatment Available Today?

If you're like me, you know about back pain. All about it! I don't get it often, but when I do ... boy do I know it's there!

The most common cause of back pain in North American adults is sciatic pain. So in this article I want to tell you about sciatica, look at a possible cures for you, and make a personal recommendation.

OK ... sciatica treatment. Let's start with a quick description of the problem.

You have nerves running all through your body, which feed huge amounts of information to the brain and are absolutely critical to your functioning. Your biggest nerve is the sciatic nerve. It is attached to your lower spine, runs across your buttocks, then down your legs as far as your ankles.

When that nerve gets irritated or pinched or rubbed up the wrong way you feel pain. Although pain generally is notoriously hard to pinpoint, the pain from an upset sciatic nerve is usually felt in the lower back, or at the back of your leg above or below the knee.

At times it will be excruciating. (Do I sense you nodding in recognition?) often it is dull and troublesome. It can be very, very persistent.

So, what can you do?

Normally, the first reaction is rest. And a couple of days of rest can be helpful. Surprisingly, however, resting for any longer only tends to make the pain worse. And none of us have that much free time anyway. So, rest is not the long-term answer.

There's got to be another way. And there is; do more exercise!

Either do strength-building exercises, that will make your abdomen and back muscles stronger, and give better support to your lower back.

Or do stretching exercises. These will gently push and pull on tight, inflexible muscles that may be the source of the pain, and in a few days the pain will have gone. Keeping up stretching exercises will give you quicker recovery and work to help you get no future flare ups.

Or, equally effective, do light aerobic exercise. Things like walking and swimming. These sort of exercises will move fluids and elements around your body, building a better healing environment for you, and will also release your natural pain killers, the endorphins.

So, for some people, exercise and movement is going to help sometimes.

If that fails, over the long term, however, I recommend you look around for a well qualified doctor who is a sciatica specialist.

Be demanding on yourself as you look. choose the best specialist you can find. Don't shop around for the cheapest deal. Ask questions until you find a good practitioner. Someone with years of experience treating sciatica, who is a surgeon and, if possible, teaches medicine at a school, would be ideal. Sciatica treatment is hard to get right, and unless you work hard to find a well-qualified specialist your treatments are likely to be short-lived.

Len McGrane writes on health in general and, most recently, on sciatica treatment. For more, helpful treatment information please click now to schwartzneurosurgeon.com.

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The Starvation Response - Do You Starve Yourself to Lose Weight?

Weve all heard stories about people getting lost in the jungle or wilderness for weeks with no food at all but only with water, or old tales of prisoners in war camps who are confined for years with only pathetic amounts of food. Ever wondered how these people survived?

Firstly, you've got to recognise that your body is an amazing thing. So amazing that sometimes I think we're almost at the point where mankind is ready to evolve to the next level.. but I probably think that because I've watched too much of X-MEN, so let's not take it that far for now.

Your body not only looks good when you're fit, but your body has the amazing ability to ADAPT to the environment. If we're looking from the point of food intake, your body is actually able to slow down its rate of burning calories if it needs to. When you're faced with a situation where food is limited, your body senses this and tells itself -''Hey, we better stop burning all these calories so quickly because it looks like we're having a shortage of calories lately, and this may go on for some time. Let's slow down and start saving more energy so that we can survive longer under these conditions with the little food we're getting''.

As a result, your metabolism slows down too, and your body is no longer at peak performance. This is THE VERY REASON why you can never starve yourself to lose fat. Yes, you'll lose weight dramatically, and some fat together with it, but you'll eventually reach a point where you're getting nowhere, and just be a miniature version of what you previously were... and not a transformed physique. For example, if you're not satisfied with your car right now, let's say you drive a Kelisa... and you wan't a bigger car. What do you get? A BIGGER Kelisa? No.. you get a different car that looks different and gives you what you want, and performs differently. That's what change is all about. You wan't to lose FAT, not 'weight'... not be a bigger or smaller version of yourself.

Okay, so let's say if somehow you manage to starve yourself to a size you want... and now you want to 'resume' your eating habits... well, I've got news for you. You're just gonna pack on the pounds all over again, and gain weight faster than you ever have! Why? Simply because you've successfully managed to trick your body into functioning with lesser calories.. and anything more would simply make you gain fat because you're consuming MORE than what your body needs.

The starvation response evolved in humans basically to ensure the survival of the species... not for you to fit into a dress or an outfit. It IS a blessing if youre stranded out in the wilderness with no food, it keeps you alive longer. However, this same life-saving mechanism WILL WORK AGAINST YOU when youre trying to lose fat because your body cant tell the difference between dieting and starving.

Until today, every single person I know who tried to starve themselves to a better physique are either back to the shape they were before, or fatter than before (most of them are fatter now and find it even more difficult to do anything about it). Who is to blame when this happens? What more proof do you need?

I'm actually quite annoyed with people who choose to starve themselves. It's SO SILLY. I've got a friend who just realised she gained 4kgs over 2 months (well.. thats what eating Chicken Crispers at Chilis once a week does to you my dear.. so don't come complaining to me). She's now decided to starve herself. I've talked to her many, many, MANY times before on the right approach to losing fat, but she's never listened to me. So basically, I've given up on giving her advice. I'm just gonna watch her.. and let her be a guinea pig to everything I've told her not to do. She's now on a diet of tea (with milk, sugar), biscuits, 1 or 2 bananas a day, no rice. In other words, she's on an ALL CARB, severely low calorie diet. Oh, the fun I'm gonna have observing her.

To everyone else out there... especially my readers - don't you dare consider starving yourself. I'd get upset too.

Josh Stone, also known as DM, is the author behind the site http://www.dailymuscle.com which offers the author's personal views on real-life fitness, bodybuilding, sports nutrition, cardio, fat loss, training information, and on all things that surrounds fitness.

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