Many times people think they have a hip, knee or ankle problem but the pain may actually be coming from the lumbar spine nerves.
If you have scoliosis and hip, leg or ankle pain this is commonly the case. ( Comments by Dr. J Hartley)
ISICO Exert
When the pain affects the leg,
is it always sciatica?
No. Sciatica is diagnosed only when the pain is directly caused by compression of one of the roots of the sciatic nerve (L3-L4-L5-S1) and consequently distributed in the relative innervation territory.
Moreover, not all pain radiating to the lower limb shows this distribution and is directly caused by lumbar nerve compression.
In fact, the sciatic nerve can be compressed by structures further downstream towards the pelvis or lower limbs, in which case only some of the nerve branches will be involved.
Alternatively, pain that starts in the hip can spread to the thigh. In these cases, we talk of “pseudo sciatica”, which has nothing to do with true sciatica caused by radiculopathy.
Trochanteritis, a form of bursitis with lateral hip tendinopathy, can also cause lateral pain throughout the thigh. Finally, certain urogynecological problems can cause pain to radiate to the groin/thigh region.
Therefore, it is important to assess the patient carefully and avoid simply dismissing pain radiating to the lower limb as “sciatica”.
