Sciatica - Part 3

Dr. Tony here in our third and final blog in our sciatica series. Today I want to talk about something that affects a lot of you parents and grandparents who are out there on the sidelines spending hours sitting watching your kids or grandkids play sports.

Obviously it's an amazing thing, but what we choose to sit in could have a huge impact on our lower back as well as things that can contribute to sciatic pain. What we want to watch out for is, as I mentioned in the last blog, is that lumbar curve and pelvic angle. Now let's talk about some of these choices of chairs.

By far, the most common, the camp chair. The problem with it, however, is that how much that lower seat scoops down. So when you sit down in the chair, you start to sag in there and eventually your spine puts this huge curve in it the wrong way, which definitely leads to lower back pain and can contribute to sciatica.

One of my new favorite chairs, this kickback rocker chair, not necessarily for the rocker aspect, but because it has more of a flat bottom on it. So when you sit down in it, it doesn't sag as much so the pelvis stays nice and supported and that lumbar spine doesn't sag into the chair as badly, which helps you maintain that nice curve there.

Now if the choice is between bleachers or a bleacher chair, you can sit in bleachers at first, that might be good, but over time what I see is that you'll eventually start to sag into that bleacher and have a curved back, which again looks like this, which is a no-no, that's bad. If you get yourself a bleacher chair, big game changer when it comes to sitting in bleachers, you can sit in those nicely, have the back nice and supported. You can sit in this for a long time without experiencing that lower back pain, discomfort, and potentially aggravating sciatica.

Be Well

Dr. Tony