The stretching is good as it helps any tight muscle.
Has anyone tried acupuncture? (not dry needling, that's different)
I just visited an acupuncturist who fixed my tight back muscles in one day! He said with sciatica, the problems are often not in the spine but in the bum muscles. He told me a story of a guy he fixed who still had sciatic nerve pain after 5 years of seeing heaps of specialists and having operations on his spine to ease the nerve. The problem was in his bum.
One of the many things acupuncture can do is release tension deep down in knotted up muscles. From now on before going the massage route I will be giving acupuncture a go, and its a whole lot less painful than deep tissue massage!