Sciatica? 7 Things Nobody Tells You About Sitting (and Why Your Cushion Could Be Making It Worse)

On a soft couch, you sink in. Your weight spreads across your whole backside and the backs of your thighs, so no single spot takes too much.

On a hard seat, it's the opposite. Almost your whole weight digs into two small points: your tailbone and your sit bones. And the hard seat pushes straight back up into them. A dining chair, a car seat, an office chair, a plane seat. The harder the seat, the more of your weight lands on those two points.

Your sciatic nerve is the biggest nerve in your body. It runs from your lower back, straight through the deep muscles of your buttock, and down the back of your leg to your foot.

So when your weight presses down on those two points, it's pressing right on the area the nerve runs through. And as we get older, there's less natural padding there to protect it. That's why the same chair that was fine at 40 sets you off now. It starts as an ache on one side, then comes the sharp pulse down the leg:

• Ache on One Side
• Sharp Pulse Down the Leg
• Burning in the Buttock
• Pins and Needles
• Numb Foot
• Heavy Leg
• Shock When You Stand
• Days to Settle

Researchers have found that blood flow through the skin starts shutting down at around 32 mmHg of pressure. Sitting on a hard seat puts your sit bones at several times that.

A few minutes of it is fine. But hold that pressure for an hour, or a long drive, or a long-haul flight, and it builds and builds right where the nerve runs. That's what sets off a flare-up, and why it can take days to settle afterwards.

When the ache starts, you shift onto one hip, then the other. You get up, walk around, sit back down. And within ten minutes, it's back.

That's because shifting doesn't spread your weight. It just changes which of those two points takes more of it. And standing only works while you're standing. The second you sit back down, the pressure goes straight back to the same spot.

The donut cushion, the one with the hole in the middle, is the one most people with sciatica buy. But a cut-out doesn't remove pressure. It moves it. Everything that went through the middle now goes through the ring around the gap, so the load is squeezed into an even smaller area than before.

Foam cushions have a different problem. They feel great when you first sit down, then slowly squash flat under your weight, until you're back on the hard seat.

So the fix isn't a softer cushion or a cleverer shape. It's spreading your weight across the whole seat, and keeping it spread.

The Cushy Bum is a grid of sealed air cells across the whole surface. No hole in the middle, and no foam to crush flat.

When you sit, the air moves between the cells and shapes itself around you, the way a good couch does. Your weight spreads across the entire seat instead of piling onto two points, so there's no single spot carrying all the pressure that sets the nerve off.

You set the firmness yourself, letting a little air out until it holds you instead of pushing back. And because it's air, it feels the same at the end of a long sit as it did at the start.

Sciatica doesn't only flare on planes. The car, the office chair, the doctor's waiting room, the grandkids' school concert, a hard pew. The Cushy Bum deflates, folds up small and clips onto your bag in its own carry bag, so it's there wherever you sit.

Compare it to what most people with sciatica end up spending:

Try it for 60 days. If it doesn't make sitting easier, send it back for a full refund.