Why Does Sciatica Hurt When I Cough or Sneeze? | Clairemont, CA

If you have sciatica and notice that coughing or sneezing sends a sharp pain through your lower back, buttock or down your leg, you're not imagining it. This is something Dr. Cassidy James Boelk, DC commonly asks about when evaluating patients with lower back pain, disc injuries and sciatica.

Patients describe it in different ways. Some feel a sharp pain right in the lower back. Some feel it shoot from the buttock into the thigh or calf. Others will tell Dr. Boelk that they can actually feel a sneeze all the way into the foot.

After more than 22 years treating patients with disc problems and sciatica, these details are important to Dr. Boelk because they help him understand how the patient's back and nerves are behaving. Pain with coughing or sneezing does not mean by itself that you have a herniated disc, but when it consistently reproduces the same leg pain you've already been experiencing, it can be another piece of the puzzle.

One of Dr. Boelk's patients, Michael Langsdale, had been treated elsewhere before coming to The Spinal Decompression & Chiropractic Center of San Diego.

“I have had an outstanding experience with Dr. Boelk and his staff at The Spinal Decompression & Chiropractic Center of San Diego.

They follow a very structured treatment protocol and utilize the best spinal decompression equipment available. I've been treated elsewhere using lower-quality decompression systems and never experienced meaningful improvement.

Dr. Boelk is attentive, professional, and genuinely cares about every patient. You can see it in the way he interacts with everyone who walks through the door.

After about 12 treatments, my sciatica was gone and I was nearly back to normal. Honestly, I wasn't sure I would ever heal. What surprised me most was that after my very first treatment, I experienced significant relief and was able to sleep mostly pain-free for the first time in months.

The improvement has allowed me to get back to hiking, traveling, and enjoying life again.

This treatment was one of the best investments I've ever made.

Thank you, Dr. Boelk and your entire team.”

— Michael Langsdale, San Diego, CA

Michael's comment about getting back to hiking, traveling and enjoying life is important because this is often how sciatica progresses. People don't always wake up one morning completely disabled. Instead, they gradually start doing less.

They stop taking long walks because they aren't sure how far they'll make it. They avoid sitting in certain chairs. They stop going to the gym. They think twice about a long drive or flight. They sleep in a different position because that's the only way they can get comfortable.

Over time, they start organizing their lives around their back.

If that sounds familiar, the first step doesn't have to be committing to treatment.

Start With a No-Charge Consultation

Patients from Clairemont can schedule a No-Charge, No-Obligation Consultation with Dr. Cassidy James Boelk, DC to find out whether their condition may be appropriate for the type of treatment provided at the office.

Dr. Boelk personally performs these consultations.

He'll ask how the problem started, where the pain is located and whether it travels into the leg. He'll want to know if you have numbness, tingling, burning or weakness and what happens when you sit, drive, bend, stand or walk.

If coughing and sneezing make the pain worse, tell him.

If you can only walk for ten minutes before your leg starts hurting, tell him that too.

If sitting is terrible but walking feels good, that's important. If you can sit all day but standing and walking bring on the symptoms, that's important too.

And if you've already tried physical therapy, chiropractic care, medication, injections or other treatment, Dr. Boelk will want to know what happened.

If you have an MRI, bring the actual images along with the radiology report. Dr. Boelk prefers to look at the images himself and compare them with what you're describing. If you don't have an MRI, you can still come in for the consultation.

There is no obligation to begin treatment.

In fact, one of the purposes of the consultation is to determine whether you are even a candidate.

Because Dr. Boelk performs these consultations himself while continuing to treat his existing patients, the office only has a limited number of No-Charge Consultation appointments available during the clinic schedule.

If you've been putting this off while the problem continues to interfere with sitting, sleeping, walking, working or exercising, you can call 619-298-0800 and ask about the next available No-Charge Consultation.

Why Does Coughing or Sneezing Make Sciatica Worse?

When you cough or sneeze, pressure changes quickly through your abdomen and around your spine. If your lower back and nerves are healthy and not irritated, you probably never notice it.

It's different when a lumbar nerve is already sensitive.

A patient may be sitting with relatively little pain, sneeze, and suddenly feel the same pain shoot from the lower back into the buttock and down the leg.

The sneeze didn't necessarily cause the injury. It may simply aggravate an area that was already irritated.

This can happen with disc and nerve-root problems, which is why doctors have traditionally asked patients with sciatica whether coughing, sneezing or straining changes their symptoms.

But Dr. Boelk would never tell someone they have a herniated disc based on this symptom alone.

If someone tells him, “It hurts when I sneeze,” there are a lot more questions to ask.

Does it hurt only in the lower back or does the pain go down the leg? If it goes down the leg, how far? Is there numbness or tingling? Which part of the foot? Does the leg feel weaker? Is sitting worse than standing? What happens when you walk?

That's where the evaluation becomes much more useful.

What If You Only Feel It in Your Lower Back?

Not everyone who has pain when coughing or sneezing has sciatica.

Some people feel a sharp pain right across the lower back. Others feel it mostly on one side or into the upper buttock.

That doesn't automatically mean you have a disc problem either.

Lower back pain can come from different structures, and one of the mistakes people make is trying to diagnose themselves from a single symptom or from something they read online.

The same thing happens with MRI reports.

A patient sees “L4-L5 disc bulge” and understandably assumes that's the answer. But the MRI might also show degeneration at L5-S1, another bulge at L3-L4 and some degree of foraminal narrowing.

Dr. Boelk wants to see whether the MRI findings actually match the patient's symptoms.

That's why he asks patients to bring the images, not just the report.

He wants to know where you hurt, where the symptoms travel, what makes them better or worse and whether there are neurological changes. Then he compares that information with the imaging.

Sometimes everything lines up very clearly. Other times it doesn't.

The goal is not to treat an MRI. It's to determine what is most likely causing the patient's problem and whether the office has an appropriate treatment option.

Pay Attention to What Your Sciatica Is Costing You

Pain is usually what gets someone's attention, but Dr. Boelk also asks what the problem is preventing the patient from doing.

Can you still exercise?

Can you sit through dinner?

Can you drive for an hour?

Can you walk around the neighborhood?

Can you sleep through the night?

Are you avoiding vacations or flights because you don't think you can tolerate the sitting?

These are often better measures of how much a back problem is affecting someone's life than asking for a pain score from one to ten.

Toni H. had been dealing with back pain and sciatica for ten years before coming to the office.

“For the first time in 10 years, I am completely pain-free. My sciatca is gone, and I no longer have back pain.

Before finding Dr. Boelk, I tried chiropractic care, acupuncture, pain medications, and several other therapies that simply didn't work. I was one step away from back surgery when I discovered spinal decompression treatment at The Spinal Decompression & Chiropractic Center of San Diego.

The results have been incredible. Every visit was comfortable, relaxing, and completely pain-free. Dr. Boelk and Patty always took the time to explain everything and made me feel genuinely cared for throughout the process.

They are warm, welcoming, and truly dedicated to helping their patients.

Thank you, Dr. Boelk and Patty!”

— Toni H., San Diego, CA

The point isn't that everyone with sciatica will have Toni's experience. It's that waiting has a cost too, especially when someone keeps giving up more and more of the things they normally do.

A Few Things Dr. Boelk Wants Patients to Watch

If you're dealing with sciatica, pay attention to whether the symptoms are changing.

Pain moving farther down the leg can be useful information. So can increasing numbness or tingling.

Strength is especially important.

If your pain has decreased but your foot is becoming progressively more numb or weak, don't automatically assume you're getting better simply because the pain number went down.

The same applies to stretching.

A lot of people with sciatica feel “tight” through the buttock, hamstring or calf and immediately start stretching harder. Sometimes that feels fine. But if stretching causes burning, tingling or sends the pain farther down the leg, that's a different response and one worth paying attention to.

Most sciatica is not an emergency, but progressive weakness should not be ignored. If you're having increasing difficulty lifting the front of your foot or you're starting to catch your toes while walking, have the condition evaluated.

Rapidly progressing weakness, new bowel or bladder problems, difficulty urinating, or numbness involving the groin or saddle area requires prompt medical attention rather than waiting for a routine spinal decompression consultation.

Could Spinal Decompression Help?

Possibly. It depends on what is causing the problem.

Dr. Boelk evaluates patients with lumbar disc bulges and herniations, degenerative disc disease, disc-related lower back pain and sciatica, foraminal narrowing and selected cases of spinal stenosis.

The Spinal Decompression & Chiropractic Center of San Diego uses the DRX9000 exclusively, but owning a decompression table is not the same thing as knowing who should be treated on it.

That is why candidacy matters.

Dr. Boelk considers the patient's symptoms, neurological findings, imaging, previous surgery, spinal stability, bone health and overall medical history before recommending decompression.

Some patients should not be treated.

Toni W. came to the office hoping decompression might help her. Because of the amount of hardware in her back from previous surgery, Dr. Boelk did not believe she was an appropriate candidate.

She wrote:

“Very nice Dr. and Honest ! I would definitely recommend anyone who hasn't had metal put in there back in a surgery to go to him and give his program a shot. I believe it would definitely help. Just not in my personal case. As I have a lot of hardware in my back. But I'm glad I took the time to meet with him. It was very informative all around.”

— Toni W., Lake Elsinore, CA

That's also a successful consultation.

She came in looking for an answer and got one, even though the answer was that decompression wasn't appropriate for her.

Patients with an unhealed fracture, significant osteoporosis, unstable spondylolisthesis, abdominal aortic aneurysm, pregnancy for lumbar decompression, certain malignancies and other medical or structural conditions may also not be appropriate candidates. Previous spinal surgery needs to be reviewed carefully, particularly when fusion or metal hardware is present at the level that would need treatment.

Patients Come From Outside San Diego Too

Although Clairemont is only a short drive from the office, some patients travel considerably farther.

Lisa S. travels from the United Kingdom:

“I travel from the UK to see Dr Boelk and his wonderful team . I have 3 bulging disc and one is touching the nerve. I have the spinal decompression treatment and it really helps keep me in my active life . I will not go to anyone else for back treatment, this place is number one and they genuinely care about their patients.”

— Lisa S., United Kingdom

Someone traveling that far still has to be an appropriate candidate. Distance doesn't change the criteria.

In fact, if someone is considering traveling from outside San Diego, Dr. Boelk wants to determine as much as possible about the condition before the patient makes extensive plans.

Why See Dr. Cassidy James Boelk, DC?

Dr. Cassidy James Boelk, DC has focused on Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression for more than 22 years and has performed more than 100,000 spinal decompression treatments.

He is a Certified Spinal Decompression Doctor, Certified Pain-Free Performance Specialist (PPSC), Founder of the Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression Training Academy, Founding Member of the American Spinal Decompression Society, Member of the International Disc Education Association and a California X-Ray Radiation Supervisor & Operator.

He also trains other doctors in spinal decompression protocols and techniques.

Dr. Boelk's interest in spinal injuries is personal as well. He suffered an L5 compression fracture at age 16 and later dealt with disc injuries and sciatica himself.

If You're Still Waiting for Your Sciatica to “Just Go Away”

Not everyone with sciatica needs treatment.

Not everyone needs an MRI.

And not everyone who comes to this office is a candidate for spinal decompression.

But if you've been waiting for weeks or months and you're still changing your life around the problem, there is value in finding out what you're dealing with.

Especially if the symptoms are now traveling farther down the leg, you're developing numbness or weakness, or something as simple as coughing or sneezing is enough to send pain through your back and leg.

You don't have to decide whether you want treatment before scheduling a consultation.

The decision right now is much simpler:

Do you want to know whether Dr. Boelk thinks he can help?

If so, call 619-298-0800 and ask about the next available No-Charge Consultation with Dr. Cassidy James Boelk, DC.

Dr. Boelk personally performs these consultations and reviews the patient's history and available imaging. They are offered at no charge and with no obligation, but there are only so many appointments he can set aside for them while treating his existing patients.

Once those appointments are filled, the next available consultation may be later.

If sciatica is already taking away your sleep, your workouts, your ability to sit, your walking, your travel or other parts of your normal life, waiting has a cost too.

The Spinal Decompression & Chiropractic Center of San Diego
5095 Murphy Canyon Road, Suite 300
San Diego, CA 92123

619-298-0800
SanDiegoBackCare.com

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