Back, Hip, Knee, Ankle… Oh My!
Pain has a funny way of moving. Sometimes it starts in one spot, then shifts, then circles back — leaving you feeling like your body is playing tricks on you.
Recently, a client came in with exactly that kind of pain puzzle. It started in her hip, then traveled to her knee, and eventually made its way down the outside of her lower leg. It got so bad she stopped driving altogether and had to rely on her husband to take her places.
Naturally, my first thought was sciatica.
If you’ve followed my posts, you know the sciatic nerve is the largest spinal nerve in the body. It originates in the lumbar spine, runs through the pelvis, travels beneath the glutes, then down the back of the leg, branching into multiple nerve channels — even reaching deep into the peroneals.
When the sciatic nerve is irritated or compressed, it can create pain that shoots, burns, or aches anywhere along that path. And generally, the further down the leg the pain reaches, the more severe the nerve involvement tends to be.
That first session, I worked on calming her nervous system, releasing tension around the piriformis, and freeing space in the low back and hip. She walked out feeling a little better, but I had a hunch there was more going on.
Two weeks later, she returned. The hip pain had improved, but she was now battling stubborn nerve pain along the outside of her leg and intense knee pain whenever she walked. That’s when I knew we had to dig deeper.
During assessment, I began freeing the piriformis again and testing for restrictions. That’s when I had my “aha!” moment. Her pain wasn’t coming from one source — it was two separate but overlapping issues.
The hip and nerve pain traced back to sciatica.
The knee pain, however, had its own root cause — dysfunction in the surrounding muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
This happens more often than you’d think. Sciatica is notorious for masking other injuries because nerve pain is so intense it drowns out everything else. At the same time, knee dysfunction can create compensations that fire up the sciatic nerve. It’s a tangled web — but one that can be unraveled with the right approach.
For her treatment, I:
Released trigger points in her IT band, hamstrings, and quads (all of which can tug on the knee and hip when tight)
Applied friction massage to the lateral ligaments of the knee to help break up adhesions and restore mobility
Addressed the piriformis and iliolumbar ligaments with deep friction work to take pressure off the sciatic nerve
By the end of the session, she walked out virtually pain-free. The relief on her face was palpable — her body felt lighter, freer, and clearly ready to heal.
Will this progress last for hours, days, or longer? Time will tell. Healing isn’t always a straight line. But the important thing is that we’ve turned a corner, and any amount of progress is worth celebrating.
✨ Here’s the big takeaway for you:
Pain isn’t always what it seems. Just because it feels like sciatica, or “just a bad knee,” doesn’t mean that’s the full picture. The body is deeply interconnected — nerves, muscles, ligaments, and joints are constantly communicating with each other. One imbalance can ripple into another.
That’s why proper assessment, hands-on care, and patience are so powerful. The body has an incredible capacity to heal when given the right support.
If you’ve been living with pain that moves around or never seems to fully resolve, don’t ignore it. Your body is trying to tell you something.
