Published: 15:40 BST, 22 August 2026 | Updated: 15:40 BST, 22 August 2026
When a pain erupted in Maddy Stikeleather's leg and lower back, she thought it would go away on its own.
A budding gymnast, the then 22-year-old had pulled a muscle two weeks prior doing splits, leading her to blame the pain on fallout from her previous injury. With a busy social and work life, as well as upcoming plans to move to South Korea, she didn't have much time to think about her health.
'It was a short, sharp pain in my right leg,' she said, 'it was anywhere from the middle of like the top of my hip down to my knee, or the inside of my thigh. Sometimes, I could even feel it in the bottom of my foot.'
Maddy tried to ease the pain with hot and cold compresses, massages, stretches and balms, but found that it only got worse, particularly at night.
'I started to move a lot slower, I couldn't keep up with anybody,' the Michigan native said. 'The pain just wouldn't go away, especially at night time, it made it really difficult to sleep.
'It affected my job in a bar too. You need to be on your feet a lot, and I just couldn't be. I had to take so many breaks because the pain was so bad.'
In August 2025, just over a month after the pain started, Maddy went to the emergency department, where she was diagnosed with a bulging disc in her spine and sciatica, a condition caused by a pinched or compressed nerve that leads to pain through the buttocks and down the leg.
'The doctor didn't offer me any treatment, but just said I should see my primary care physician,' she said. 'He told me not to come back unless I lost control of my bowels.'
Maddy Stikeleather, who turns 24 later this month, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer after initially being told she had sciatica
About 10 to 40 percent of Americans are diagnosed with sciatica at least once in their lives, but doctors warn that sciatica is only a diagnosis for the symptom, but not what is causing the pain.
In many cases, it is triggered by an overgrowth of bone or a herniated or bulging disc, but in some cases it may be a warning sign of something more sinister.
'If the pain does not improve or does not respond to therapy, then that is a sign that further tests are needed', said Dr Ali Baaj, a spine surgeon at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
'Whenever someone has unusual prolonged back pain, numbness or tingling in a limb that spreads to another limb or severe pain in their lower back that does not respond to therapy, then that would warrant further investigation.
'Pain at night would also be something that we would investigate.'
