If you're like me, you know about back pain. All about it! I don't get it often, but when I do ... boy do I know it's there!

The most common cause of back pain in North American adults is sciatic pain. So in this article I want to tell you about sciatica, look at a possible cures for you, and make a personal recommendation.

OK ... sciatica treatment. Let's start with a quick description of the problem.

You have nerves running all through your body, which feed huge amounts of information to the brain and are absolutely critical to your functioning. Your biggest nerve is the sciatic nerve. It is attached to your lower spine, runs across your buttocks, then down your legs as far as your ankles.

When that nerve gets irritated or pinched or rubbed up the wrong way you feel pain. Although pain generally is notoriously hard to pinpoint, the pain from an upset sciatic nerve is usually felt in the lower back, or at the back of your leg above or below the knee.

At times it will be excruciating. (Do I sense you nodding in recognition?) Often it is dull and troublesome. It can be very, very persistent.

So, what can you do?

Normally, the first reaction is rest. And a couple of days of rest can be helpful. Surprisingly, however, resting for any longer only tends to make the pain worse. And none of us have that much free time anyway. So, rest is not the long-term answer.

There's got to be another way. And there is; do more exercise!

Either do strength-building exercises, that will make your abdomen and back muscles stronger, and give better support to your lower back.

Or do stretching exercises. These will gently push and pull on tight, inflexible muscles that may be the source of the pain, and in a few days the pain will have gone. Keeping up stretching exercises will give you quicker recovery and work to help you get no future flare ups.

Or, equally effective, do light aerobic exercise. Things like walking and swimming. These sort of exercises will move fluids and elements around your body, building a better healing environment for you, and will also release your natural pain killers, the endorphins.

So, for some people, exercise and movement is going to help sometimes.

If that fails, over the long term, however, I recommend you look around for a well qualified doctor who is a sciatica specialist.

Be demanding on yourself as you look. Choose the best specialist you can find. Don't shop around for the cheapest deal. Ask questions until you find a good practitioner. Someone with years of experience treating sciatica, who is a surgeon and, if possible, teaches medicine at a school, would be ideal. Sciatica treatment is hard to get right, and unless you work hard to find a well-qualified specialist your treatments are likely to be short-lived.