Thanks for the reply sdkashif.

I do agree with all that you say in the post and I do understand that you were answering a question about the use of IFT and SWD in sciatica.

My point is that I believe that the role of electrotherapy is quite small compared to manual therapy and exercise. Sometimes i go days without touching my U/S (ultrasound)and weeks/months without my IFT (interferential).

Whilst all the elaborate reasons about why you need this frequency or that is interesting, the bottom line is that it is just a band-aid in the end.

A comparison might be this...
You get stabbed in the leg(heaven forbid). You have a knife wound that is bleeding and lots of pain but neither is life-threatening (no arteries cut). You take a pain-killer. The pain stops. When the pain killers wear off, you are in pain again. You can take another pain killer or not. This goes on until there is no longer any pain - that is the wound heals itself. The pain-killer did not fix the problem, it just made the process more bearable. However, if you had the wound cleaned up and stitched up, the healing would be a lot faster (that is, taking measures to fix the problem).

In physio terms, treatment of sciatica with IFT or SWD is like this...
You have a lesion causing sciatica. You give the patient a pain-killer (IFT, SWD, electrotherapy). They keep coming back for about 6 weeks. During this time, most people with back pain will have their pain spontaneously resolve within 6 weeks. No matter how much we would like to think we helped, I am fairly sure the research supports the notion that electrotherapy is not that beneficial for low back pain. Of course, if you addressed the problem - pinched nerve, trapped meniscoid, motor control problem, global hyperactivity, etc, then they can better faster.

What do you think?