After my recent flareup of sciatica, I took a week off from riding or other exercise. It was painful to walk for a few days, then I tried using a walker that I had laying around from a previous injury and that helps a lot. Conventional walkers don’t work as well outside, even though I replaced the tips on the rear legs with teflon “ski tips” that slide better. So I treated myself to a “rollator” style walker that has four wheels so it rolls better and brakes for safety. These are surprisingly inexpensive nowadays. I also like that it has a fold-down seat. So I do much better in situations like shopping because I can take a sit-break whenever I like.
After a week I eased slowly back into cycling, but on my recumbent only, I’m not sure the sore side is ready for a saddle yet. I started out with 30 minutes and have now worked my way up to over an hour. Easy, high-cadence low-resistance only. It turns out that my upper body workout does not bother the sciatica side at all so I can also do that. And I spin for about 5 minutes on my indoor cycle a few times a day to keep the muscles warm. I also stretch the piriformis muscle on the sciatica side multiple times a day, and every night I do the PT exercise I was given for piriformis syndrome. At first I did the stretching only but have now started to add in strengthening.
With all this, it is starting to come around. The muscle itself still gets sore and is stiff when I first wake up in the morning, but feels better when I warm it up. And there is much less referred pain going down the leg so I think the piriformis is relaxing and not pressing on the sciatic nerve as much.
I’m still not up to riding longer rides with my group yet but it is a short ride to where they go for lunch after so I ride over and meet them there, which I’ll do later this morning.
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