So I'm pretty sure I have sciatica. I've been having lower back pain for the past couple weeks that radiates down my leg, and it still hasn't resolved.

I've been doing a lot to try to help treat it (foam rolling, gentle exercise, and using ice packs/heating pads) but it's still there.

I've had to modify workouts a lot due to this issue. Some things I've avoided doing due to sciatica include forward folds, downward dog, seated forward bends, and chair pose. Also, I've entirely avoided lower body strength training since my sciatica flared up after doing a particularly challenging lower body workout.

Even pilates feels like it aggravates my lower back. I know abs exercises are supposed to be good for sciatica, but my lower back seems to be telling me not to do those exercises at the moment.

Any tips or advice? It's frustrating having to avoid not only higher-impact exercises, but gentle/low impact ones as well. Even some simple stretches are a struggle.

Thanks for reading!