I've had sciatica for 19 months, even after losing all my belly fat and doing the PT religiously. Will it end?

Do I maybe require surgery at this point? I have a 6-pack ab now, very little belly fat; yet; that doesn't seem to be enough to take the load off my S1 disc. Plus, I go on a 45-minute walk every night to help keep my back nice and strong. Will the sciatica ever go away?

Whether or not it will end isn't something on here can tell you, but I can tell you that it is quite possible it will end.

I've been plagued with that. Here's what I found worked for me.

One thing that made mine worse was using a chair with a cushion built into the seat. I later realized the cushion had become kind of worn down, and I was unconsciously holding my back in a funny way to compensate. I switched to one of those hard, gray, metal, folding chairs; and I feel like I've never had a problem.

Another thing: Your shoes. It is amazing how some almost imperceptible thing about shoes can cause horrible back and muscle problems. I make sure I don't wear shoes that have soles/insoles worn down.

I've found that if you lay across a bed (not in it because mattresses get gullies from use) and make it a point to try to stretch out straight as much as possible, while also making it a point to consciously "tell your lower back" to relax as much as possible it can help. I've found that making a point of doing this daily eventually makes a difference.

Also, I've found that all through the day if I'm in a chair it can help to first consciously "tell the lower back" to relax as much as possible, and then kind of try to push the lower back out into as much of an arched curve as much as possible. This is essentially just more stretching, but what it seems to me it also does is prevent further tightening up of the muscles or even spasms.

I've found that if the sciatica is acting up (and, obviously, is painful) I would have to "relax through that pain" in order to begin reducing the pain that kind of radiates from the point of the problem. I've found there is the tendency to want to stay "unrelaxed" because of the pain, and trying to just "relax through" the initial pain feels like the pain is getting worse. I've found, though, that relaxing through it is the first step in reversing that whole cycle of muscle spasms (or whatever is going on there), and I've been able to get the pain to where it no longer radiates out and down but is more of an isolated "gliche" in the one spot where it originates.

I don't think sciatica has much to do with weight or fitness. I was about 100 lbs or so when I was getting it off and on for a few years.

What I found was that getting rid of it was a multi-step process. First I started with relaxing the muscles around the site because they just added to the pain. Then I aimed to get my back straight as much as possible. Another part of the process, though, was making sure I didn't re-do the problem; and it seemed, at the time, as if the problem was really kind of lurking "out there", waiting for one false move to get started again.

What could have been a shorter term condition turned into a long-term one because it was so easy to re-do it once it occurred the first time.

I have always done a lot of walking, and I've found, though, that walking with the wrong shoes just makes it act up again. Even with the right shoes, there's the chance that walking too much, too fast, or even too lopsided (my area has lopsided sidewalks that get my back acting up because I'm compensating for them with back muscles) could actually be aggravating the situation.

I've found, too, that if I walk while I have some pain I may adjust what I'm doing with certain back/leg muscles, and make it worse.

I've found - at least in my own situation - that it isn't so much a matter of getting strong as it has been to get relaxed and get the whole skeleton "all straight" with the aim of "having everything go back into place"

I had the initial bouts of sciatica a long time ago. Then for a few years after I'd feel it coming on and fight it off by relaxing and stretching. I haven't had it for years, and I feel now as if I've never had it at all. (I do make it a point, though, to always make stretching "way out straight" something I do regularly, and I make it a point to "push out" the lower back in a way that makes it feel as if I'm untightening any muscle tension.)

For me, it did seem that making sure I was careful not to just move "willy nilly" and not to do too many exercise-type moves (other than the simple stretching and relaxing) was very important.

Not long ago there was a thing on the news about a back center that uses stretching to get rid of back problems that people may otherwise have sought surgery for. It backed up my self-figured-out approach to relaxing and stretching away the sciatica. I don't know if my approach would work for you, and I'm certainly not someone with training in that field (other than getting rid of my own problem apparently permanently). I have seen, though, that it can disappear seemingly as quickly as it showed up.

This is a question you need to ask your doctor as without looking at your x-rays etc no one on here can begin to know if it will go away or not. Also since you have lost some abdominal fat etc your doc may want to do another set of x-rays or an MRI to see more clearly just what is causing your pain.

MRI is a good idea, it might not be sciatica. I thought my problem was belly fat, but I was so skinny! It turned out to be a herniated disk and a slipped disk. Sometimes they feel the same as sciatica.