What We Treat

Back pain and sciatica treatment in New Orleans.

The stiffness getting out of the car. The electric line that runs from your lower back into your foot. It starts with a cause-first evaluation, not a guess.

Sciatica Bending and lifting Numbness down the leg Talk to a Specialist

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like you?

  • Bracing both hands on the sink just to stand up straight
  • An electric line of pain from your lower back into your foot and toes
  • The “my back just went out” moment that stops you mid-step
  • Stiff enough at 6am that you plan your first ten minutes around it
  • Standing up from your desk chair in stages, because eight hours locked you up
  • Letting your kid pick up their own toy, because bending isn’t worth the risk

Two or more? Keep reading.

Why It Happens

Back Pain & Sciatica has a cause. We find it.

Your back doesn’t hurt for no reason, and it’s rarely one thing. Four culprits show up most. A disc that has bulged just far enough to press on a nerve, which is what sends pain down your leg. The small facet joints linking your vertebrae, stiff and inflamed until they stop sharing the load. Trigger points: muscle that overworked, spasmed, and stayed hard. And the sciatic nerve itself, held under tension from your lower back all the way to your calf.

Then there is the rest of your day. Long stretches sitting on a hard seat. One forceful twist to shift something heavy. Even a thick wallet in a back pocket. None of that started this on its own, but it keeps reloading the same spot before it heals. Sorting out which culprit is actually driving your pain is what a cause-first evaluation is for. You’re the one everybody calls when something needs lifting. Which is exactly why your own back is last on the list, and exactly why you’re reading this.

Therapist guiding a patient seated on a therapy ball

The Honest Truth

Waiting doesn’t make back pain and sciatica wait on you.

If you keep waiting

  • The list of things you don’t lift anymore keeps getting one item longer
  • Your hips and knees take over the work your back stopped doing, and start complaining
  • You move less to protect it, which weakens the exact muscles meant to protect it

If you start this week

  • Visit one is a cause-first evaluation, not a quick look and a heat pack
  • One-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, hands on, every visit
  • A plan with an endpoint: you know which phase you’re in and what’s left

Nobody regrets starting too early. Look at what you’ve already stopped doing, and ask what’s next on that list.

How We Fix It

The same four phases. Built for your back.

This is Magnolia’s own four-phase program, run for back pain and sciatica. Every plan has an endpoint.

Where we start

Pain

Calm the pain down.

Hands-on work on the trigger points and the stiff segments, with electrical stimulation to quiet the muscle guarding.

Once the pain settles

Prime

Get your motion back.

Joint and nerve mobility work restores bending and twisting. Massage therapy loosens the tissue holding the pattern in place.

Once motion returns

Perform

Make it strong enough to trust.

Progressive core and hip strengthening builds the support your spine was missing before the first flare-up.

Before we sign off

Prevent

Return better than before.

Lifting, bending and twisting get tested under real load, and we fix how you sit and pace your day. That’s the endpoint, not another appointment.

I wanted to go after the cause and not just treat symptoms. I was quite happy that Magnolia agreed to help me.

Curt M.

At the start: the pain picks what you can do

At the end: you pick what you can do

Back Pain & Sciatica Four phases

Related Conditions

Pain rarely stays in one place.

Compensation patterns often show up nearby. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Neck Pain

Lost rotation, and the headaches that come with it.

Learn More 2

Chronic Pain

Pain that outlasted the injury that started it.

Learn More 3

Balance & Gait Disorders

A back that changes how you walk changes your footing too.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for back pain and sciatica.

Usually not, and it’s rarely the first step. A scan shows structure, not what is loading it. Bulges and wear turn up on scans of people who have no pain at all, so a picture on its own doesn’t tell you why your back hurts. We start with a hands-on, cause-first evaluation. If imaging would genuinely change your plan, we’ll help you get it. Waiting on a scan is not the same as starting.

Yes, and movement usually helps more than rest. Hurt doesn’t always mean harm, and lying still tends to leave you stiffer and weaker, which sets up the next flare-up. What matters is dosing the right movement for your cause, and knowing which movements to leave alone for now. That is what a licensed physical therapist works out at your evaluation, then progresses as you improve.

We won’t hand you a number before we have looked at your back, because a number picked in advance is a guess. What you get instead is a plan with an endpoint. Your plan runs through our four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and each phase has a job and a way to know you have finished it. Your therapist talks through the likely shape of yours at the evaluation, and you will always know which phase you are in and what is left.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree, no ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Mon to Fri, 7:00am to 6:00pm
  • (504) 733-0254 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • Insurance benefits check before you book

4.9 · 650+ 5-star reviews

Five short questions. About a minute.

Step 1 of 6

So we know who to look for when you walk in.

Visit Us

Three clinics. One phone number.

Westbank, Marigny, Elmwood. Whichever is closest, you get the same care and the same number to call.

Harvey (Westbank)

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New Orleans (Marigny)

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Harahan (Elmwood)

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