Easy Rider

Intermittent bouts of sciatica disrupted Candy Doran's cycling career. After discovering yoga, she's back in the saddle.

By Matthew Solan

One day 25 years ago Candy Doran, an avid cyclist and competitive runner, bent over to pump a bike tire and was struck by lightning. Not literally, but that's how she describes the searing pain that shot through her lower back and leg and made her collapse to the ground in agony. The pain quickly subsided, and she resumed her routine of training for half marathons and vigorous cycling competitions like the California Death Ride, for which she biked through five mountain passes in a single day. Over the years, the pain would return, sometimes not as severe; sometimes she just had trouble getting comfortable while seated. It always went away and didn't interfere with her regular activities, so she just "ran and cycled through the pain," she says. When it was gone, it was forgotten. Eventually, after hearing her running and cycling buddies complain about sciatica and reading about the condition in fitness magazines, she put two and two together and realized that she too was suffering from inflammation of the sciatic nerve.

When she tried to address her pain, the results were discouraging. A chiropractor and physical therapist weren't helpful. So she consulted her running magazines and tried the back exercises they recommended. Her hope was that strengthening the muscles of the lumbar area would lessen the frequency or severity of the attacks. But it didn't, and at times the exercises made matters worse.

It wasn't until a knee operation ended her running career a few years ago that she became determined to control her sciatica. "I was physically deteriorating and I knew I needed to preserve what I had left," says Doran, who still cycles about 100 miles each weekend around San Francisco. "And I knew I had to go outside my Western experience of physical therapy to do it."

She found solace at the Iyengar Yoga Institute and with her teacher, Kathy Alef. For the past four years, her twice-weekly practice has taught her to stretch correctly, concentrate on proper alignment, and focus on her overall physical needs. This has been a departure from her physical therapy exercises, which she says are often designed just for specific areas. Now she fights the entire fire instead of individual flames. "Yoga has taught me to pay attention to how my body moves and how it relates to my sciatica," Doran says.

For the first time in decades, Doran's sciatica is almost nonexistent. Besides an occasional flare-up, the equivalent of a 24-hour cold, she is practically pain free. Best of all, at 55, she's able to stay active at an age when most people have to slow down. "Now when my sciatica does occur, I know what to do to ease the pain—stretch and strengthen like crazy."

Of All the Nerve

The sciatic nerves are the body's two largest nerves. They are about as thick as your pinkie and emanate from the lower lumbar spine. They thread through the buttocks down the back of each leg to the soles of the feet and big toes. Pain strikes when a root that helps form one of the sciatic nerves, or when the nerve fibers, become pinched or irritated. You can feel it anywhere along the nerve's branch: low back, buttocks, leg, calf, or foot. It can be felt down one leg or both.

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