Search the VA rating schedule for the word sciatica and you come back nearly empty-handed. That is the detail veterans miss: sciatica is the lay word for a symptom, and VA rates the condition behind it, radiculopathy, under its own nerve code, separately from the back and leg by leg. Claims written around the wrong word leave the bigger rating buried inside the spine number.
Sciatica is a symptom, radiculopathy is the diagnosis
"Sciatica" is the word most veterans use for the shooting pain that runs from the lower back down the leg. It describes a symptom, not a diagnosis VA can rate on its own. The medical name for the condition behind it is radiculopathy: a nerve root coming off the spine is pinched or irritated, and the pain, numbness, and weakness travel along the path of that nerve. When the sciatic nerve is involved, the lay word is sciatica. The rating word is radiculopathy of the sciatic nerve.
VA rates the nerve under 38 CFR 4.124a
Radiculopathy is rated under the neurological schedule (38 CFR 4.124a), not the orthopedic spine schedule. The sciatic nerve is diagnostic code 8520. VA rates it by how severe the nerve involvement is and which leg is affected:
- Mild incomplete paralysis: 10 percent
- Moderate incomplete paralysis: 20 percent
- Moderately severe incomplete paralysis: 40 percent
- Severe incomplete paralysis with marked muscle atrophy: 60 percent
- Complete paralysis (total loss of sciatic nerve function, which often presents with foot drop and no useful movement below the knee but is not limited to that picture): 80 percent
Each affected leg is rated separately, so a veteran with radiculopathy down both legs can carry two ratings that then combine.
It is usually a secondary condition
Most leg radiculopathy starts in the back. A herniated disc or degenerative changes in the lumbar spine press on the nerve root, and the leg symptoms follow. That makes radiculopathy a textbook secondary condition under 38 CFR 3.310: connected because it flows from an already service-connected back disability. The spine and the nerve are rated separately, which is allowed because they reflect different functions and not the same symptom counted twice.
Why the distinction changes your rating
If a claim is written up only as "back pain with sciatica," the leg nerve damage can get folded into the spine rating and lost. Filed correctly, the lumbar spine is rated on its motion and the radiculopathy in each leg is rated on its own under 8520. Separate ratings that combine almost always produce a higher number than one rating alone.
Common filing mistakes that cost veterans rating points
- Sciatica is the symptom; radiculopathy is what VA rates, so the claim and the exam should name the nerve and the affected leg.
- Each leg is its own rating under 8520, and two moderate ratings combine for more than one alone.
- The spine and the nerve are rated separately, which is proper and not double-counting, because motion and nerve function are different.
- Radiculopathy is usually secondary to the back under 3.310, so the back claim opens the door to the leg rating.
- Reflex, strength, and sensory findings drive the severity level, so make sure the exam records them in each leg.