Low back pain can occur for many different reasons like arthritis, a herniated disk or uterine contractions. But the most common cause of low back pain is a strain to the muscles that stabilize the back. Your back muscles can become strained by prolonged sitting or standing, poor posture, increased weight, and lifting, carrying or moving heavy objects.

Sciatica is a condition in which the sciatic nerve is compressed, causing pain to travel along the nerve's route, typically along the back of your leg, knee, calf and foot. The nerve can be compressed anywhere along the route but, most commonly, compression occurs because of a disc herniation at the spine or a swollen piriformis muscle at the buttock.

Symptoms of sciatica often include pain in the low back or buttock that shoots down the back of one leg into the back of the knee or down to the foot. Pain can feel sharp like a lightning bolt or dull, achy and radiating. You may also experience numbness, tingling, or burning down the back of the leg.

Depending on the source of your symptoms, sciatica can heal on its own with rest and ice or it may improve with physical therapy exercise and guidance or it may benefit from surgical intervention in the rare case of a severe disk dysfunction. Acute symptoms following a specific incident like moving a couch will typically improve within 2 weeks.