re: Sciatica is kicking my arse

Prednisone may help calm down the inflammation but either way you need to start opening up your hips and strengthening the low back to help heal and make yourself more resilient for the future. Prednisone is unlikely to work more than once or twice. Give yourself at least a year of trying to fix it through exercise before considering surgery. I found that rest only made things worse. Walk a lot and do whatever you can to make sure you're getting good sleep. Just about any PT is going to treat you with the McKenzie method. This has never worked for me but I guess it must work for some people. I can't recommend Athletic Truth Group enough. There's also a guy on instagram @lowbackability who learned most of his stuff from ATG and has taken it to another level. His programming has pretty much healed me.

I took a shite load of melatonin and Gabapentin to try to get some sleep when I was at my worst. This is just a bandaid and won't permanently heal you, but if it's necessary for sleep then that's where it has value since sleep is so important to healing.