From my chamber: An elderly man with sciatica ] Learn with steem #3

Hello, friends of Steem blockchain. This is my third post of the series, where I share a case history of a patient which I consulted recently in my chamber. And following the history, I try to highlight the take-home messages, depending upon the case history, which can be beneficial for us. Today I will talk about Sciatica.

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The case history

Today morning one 80 years old Omani old man came to my chamber with an attendant, most likely his daughter. He came walking without any obvious limping. He was a lean and thin person. He came with the complaints of pain in his left buttock area which goes down (called radiating pain) to his lower limb way down to his foot. He also had some muscle cramp type pain in the affected limb along with some numbness.
He didn’t have any lower back pain at that time. He also didn’t have any problem with passing urine or stool. He, however, had a history of heart attack for which he was on an aspirin tablet. He had no history hypertension, diabetes mellitus and lipid disorders.

He had muscle wasting all over his body. According to her daughter, after having the heart issue, he stopped taking all kinds of meat items. She attributed his lean, thin and wasted muscle to the not-eating-any-meats. She wasn’t wrong. He had pain along the back of his thigh and leg. He had a weakness to his limbs as well which could be attributed to either his age or the disease process.

Considering all these symptoms and examinations findings, he was most likely suffering from a condition known as Sciatica.

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Take-home message:

Sciatica is a painful condition where there is a problem in the nerve known as the sciatic nerve. It is one of the big and long nerves of the body. It starts from the lower back area (lower lumbar area) and ends at the feet. If the nerve is compressed by any surrounding structures at any points of its course, sciatica may develop.

The main features of sciatica are a pain in the lower back and in the buttock area, which radiates down, along the back of the thigh and leg, till the foot. The pain is often associated with numbness.

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This is all about today. Hope that you have found some useful information from today's post. If you have any questions or suggestion, please don't hesitate to contact me in the comment section.

Have a wonderful day!
Until Next Post
Dr Hafiz

Original content, only published in the Steemit

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Previous posts of this series:

• Skin allergy
• Back pain

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