Sciatica Treatment
We will get to the root cause of your sciatic pain, and help you overcome it.
At Whole Family Chiropractic in Anchorage, we treat sciatica by locating and correcting the structural problem creating pressure on the sciatic nerve, rather than managing the pain and hoping it settles.
If the burning line of pain running from your lower back into your leg keeps coming back after every stretch, ice pack, and round of anti inflammatories, the reason is usually mechanical, and mechanical problems respond to mechanical correction.
Dr. Jessica Dachowski, DC, DICCP and Dr. Ryan Dachowski, DC lead our clinical team. Together they have delivered more than 250,000 adjustments and serve over 7,000 patients across Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley.
What is the Root Cause of Sciatica?
Sciatica describes a symptom pattern, not a diagnosis. The sciatic nerve forms from nerve roots exiting your lower spine at the L4 through S3 levels, merges into the largest nerve in your body, and travels through the buttock, down the back of the thigh, and into the calf and foot. When something compresses or irritates one of those roots, your body reports the problem along the entire length of the nerve.
This distinction matters more than it sounds. Two people can walk in with identical leg pain and have completely different underlying causes. Treating both the same way explains why so many people cycle through temporary relief and return months later with the same complaint. Identifying which structure creates the compression determines what actually resolves it.
What Causes Sciatica?
The sciatic nerve does not become irritated on its own. Something adjacent to it changes shape, position, or size. The most common sources include:
Lumbar disc herniation. The gel like center of a spinal disc pushes through its outer wall and contacts the nerve root. This accounts for the majority of sciatica cases we evaluate.
Degenerative disc disease. Discs lose height and hydration over years, narrowing the space where nerve roots exit and leaving less room for normal movement.
Spinal stenosis. The central canal or the openings where nerves exit narrow due to arthritic change, thickened ligaments, or bone spurs. Stenosis related sciatica typically worsens with walking and eases when you sit or lean forward.
Spondylolisthesis. One vertebra slides forward over the one beneath it, altering the geometry of the nerve openings.
Piriformis syndrome. The piriformis muscle sits directly over the sciatic nerve in the buttock. When it tightens or spasms, it can compress the nerve outside the spine entirely. This is genuine sciatic irritation with a completely different origin, and it responds to a different treatment approach.
Loss of lumbar curve. Your lower spine should carry a forward curve of roughly 40 degrees. When that curve flattens or reverses, load distribution across the discs changes and the front of each disc absorbs pressure it was never built to handle. This is the cause most often missed, because it produces no dramatic event to point back to.
Pregnancy. Shifting weight distribution, ligament laxity, and pelvic changes commonly provoke sciatic symptoms during the second and third trimesters. Our pregnancy chiropractic care addresses these cases specifically.
Our Solution
Sciatica Pain Relief in Anchorage
Whole Family Chiropractic operates as the only Chiropractic BioPhysics clinic in Anchorage. CBP is a spinal correction protocol supported by more than 350 peer reviewed research studies that treats spinal alignment as a measurable, correctable quantity rather than a subjective impression.
The difference shows up in three places.
We measure before we treat. Digital x-ray imaging with objective mensuration tells us the actual degree of your lumbar curve, the position of your pelvis, and how your spine loads under gravity. We are not estimating. We have numbers, and those numbers become your treatment target.
We use mirror image correction. Rather than adjusting into the direction your spine already moves easily, CBP applies adjustments, exercises, and traction in the precise opposite direction of your measured distortion pattern. Structural change requires sustained load in a corrective direction, which is why the protocol combines all three elements instead of relying on adjustments alone.
We remeasure. Progress examinations compare your current alignment against your starting films. You see whether the curve is restoring, and we adjust the plan based on what the imaging shows rather than on how you happen to feel that week.
For sciatica specifically, restoring lumbar lordosis shifts compressive load off the posterior disc wall and reopens the space where nerve roots exit. The nerve stops being compressed because the structure compressing it has changed. Spinal orthotics such as the Denneroll, a molded traction device that applies sustained corrective pressure while you rest on it, extend that work into your home between visits.
Looking for a great family chiropractor in Anchorage?
Contact us today at 907-562-3060 for an appointment
Whole Family
Chiropractic
600 E. 36th Ave.
Suite 300
Anchorage, AK 99503
907-562-3060
Office Hours
Monday, Wednesday & Friday
8:00am – 12pm & 2pm – 6pm
Tuesday & Thursday
2pm – 6pm
Saturday & Sunday
Closed