Herniated discs, sciatica and pain in the feet.

[sadman]

Hello everybody,

I have 0,5 cm paramedial herniated disc at level L4-L5 and 0,3 cm medial disc protrusion at level L5-S1. I got these two problems in the beginning of 2008 or so and since then I was living with varying lower back pain. To make a long story short, a month and a half ago I started to feel some kind of discomfort in my feet, like needles, pinching or something like that. As I read, there is a thing called sciatica which is related to the fact that those two herniated discs are pressing the certain nerves which are responsible for innervating the feet (yeah, that sounds amateur, but I'm not related to anatomy etc. in any way). I went to see a physiotherapist, he tested the condition of my muscles (flexibility, range of motion, strength etc.) and said that everything was okay. He said that there is no way physical exercises can help me and the only way to solve my problems is to take drugs (nimesulide, tizanidine and injectionable vitamin B) and apply physiotherapy procedures. So my question is: can drugs really help to get rid of that feet pain, I mean, can drugs help to remove the reason of the pain? As I read, physiotherapy procedures aren't that good for solving a problem like the one I have and drugs can just temporary relieve the pain, but that's it (I also read about those drugs I mentioned before and I roughly know how they work).
If you need any kind of information about the background of my lower back problems etc. feel free to ask, because I don't want to make my first post here look extra long (though I already did).
So after telling all this, I am looking forward to your responses.

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[pudding_bowl]

Some drugs can help you to cope with the pain definately. And if the pain is extreme you would be best with some drugs that work well with neuropathic pain like amitriptylline (It's a antidepressant in larger doses, but a good pain releiever for neuropathic pain in a smaller dosage).
In terms of physio not being able to help, True we cannot resolve a herniated disc - Though there is an interesting study where they took cadaver spines with herniations and kept them in sustained extension for long periods of time and they saw the disc start to move back... But I suspect you wouldn't manage to keep your spine at full extension for 2 weeks! Generally physio in this area is about teaching back care and core control and monitoring symptoms while it resolves, and if it doesn't or it gets worse then a surgery may be indicated. Generally the first 3 months are the worst of the conservative treatment and then fingers crossed it slowly starts to resolve. Can take a good 2 years if I remember correctly.