Sleepless With Sciatica

Have you ever been sleepless with sciatica pain? It's pretty, well, painful,... and quite remarkably so.

Sciatica – lower back, and leg pain

Sciatica is a symptom with many possible causes – you should always check with your doctor if you have any pain, including sciatica. Issues in the low back can cause sciatica pain. However, a person doesn't have to experience low back pain to suffer from it – the pain is often found shooting down the back of the leg.^1,2

This is exactly where my sciatica pain is pinging me right now.

How sciatica pain impacts my sleep

For many years it didn't bother me. Then 1 night, I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and I got back into bed and felt a quiet little 'zing' pulsing down the back of my left leg. It wasn't a terrible pain, but a sharp, achy feeling that pushed its way down my leg to the back of my knee.

Now, I know that getting upset about pain – or lack of sleep – only makes it worse. So I went into my 'mindfulness mode:' watched the pain; counted how long it was between 'zings;' and saw it change its character. The pain changed from throbbing to sometimes sharp, to sometimes barely there.

Next, I observed the sciatica pain's impact on me and my sleep: it was just enough above the threshold that it was challenging to get comfortable.

Decatastrophizing pain and sleeplessness

I observed this process, too – how I shifted my legs and how that affected the discomfort. I figured since I was engaged enough with the actual pain (never mind watching it) that I wasn't going to sleep for a while, so I didn't let that bother me.

Worrying about the sleep was not going to help me get back to sleep – but decatastrophizing not sleeping and also the pain was helpful for both. I could see that it eventually faded, and my sleepiness grew, and after about an hour, I fell back to sleep.

My 'sleepless with sciatica' pain tips

I'm still a bit in the middle of this most recent bout of sciatica – it hasn't left yet – but I have found these few tips helpful for my sleep in the meantime:

• Sleeping on my side with a pillow between my legs helps me from rolling, which seems to irritate my symptoms.
• I acknowledge the pain, but I practice focussing my attention on other sensations in bed – the soft topper of the mattress, the crisp sheets. Focussing only on the pain and on not sleeping is completely unhelpful for me.
• I turn up the temperature on my heated blanket. This is soothing and calming and keeps me feeling limber and flexible.
• I'm more careful about my caffeine intake during the day to be sure I'm setting myself up for sleep as best I can.
• I 'compress' my sleep. What's that? I avoid laying there awake by staying up later and ensuring I am completely sleepy when I get into bed. (A CBTI technique that helps build sleep drive and sleep pressure.) This helps me fall asleep faster.
• I recognize that my brain is good at looking for threats – it's part of what it was designed to do. Also, I know that I can create a 'threat' out of nearly anything. In order to avoid feeding my brain's interest in perceiving this pain as a threat, I will reframe it and focus on what is going right rather than on what is going wrong.
• I can problem-solve and work on the pain and its interruption of my sleep without fearing it.

A little saying I give myself: Fear feeds....so don't feed it!

Do you ever have a sciatica problem that keeps you awake at night and feeds your own insomnia? What has helped you the most with getting better sleep when sciatica pain happens to you?