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What's been going on with my butt
Jun. 3rd, 2008 07:18 amOr "lower back" as I've learned to refer to it when discussing it in polite society.
I went to a chiropractor who told me my lower spine was out of alignment. I like him a lot, there's a dog in the office that is walked by the woman who walks Cooper. He'd lay me down on a table and put a warm blanket and an electrostim on my lower back and leave me there. Then he'd come in and crack my neck and my back and lean on me to do a hip stretch. Each time I had to tell him where the problem was - not my lower back but the piriformis muscle in my butt. Then the last time he attached the electrodes to my butt but because the piriformis is so deep it didn't affect it.
I've been doing a lot of reading online and what I've learned is that the concept of "piriformis syndrome" is reasonably new, medicine-wise. Most people present with sciatica - where the there is pain down the sciatic nerve down the leg. This used to be routinely ascribed to spinal issues and an upsettingly large number of people had surgery that caused pain, required a lot of rehab, sometimes left them worse off, and didn't do anything for the sciatica.
I am relatively lucky in that my sciatic nerve doesn't seem to be affected by my misbehaving piriformis; for most people it's:
This back view shows what the problem is - when I stand up after sitting for a while, that inflamed, tight little muscle is getting pushed around against bone in very upsetting, painful ways. Once I stand up I'm OK but there are times I've teared up from the pain.
I went to an orthopedic doctor who is supposed to be experienced in treating sciatica; she gave me that "I went to med school so don't tell me what you've read on the internet" attitude when I was trying to use what I had learned to explain what I was, and wasn't experiencing. Not a good start. She put electrodes on my leg and determined that even though I wasn't feeling nerve pain there was some slight impingement. Then she wanted to give me a shot that she said _might_ help.
After working out for a while, that little muscle is covered by a lot of big muscle and it was a BIG needle. I told her that "might" wasn't enough for me. Then she prescribed ultrasound and electrostim and it was the same as with the chiro - too much muscle in the way. So I didn't go back. She did give me some percodan, though.
Back to the internets. What I've been doing the last couple of days that's noticeably helping is these two stretches:
along with this:
I've been doing this, as well, but with a tennis ball. OW OW OW OW when it hits the spot but it helps.
I also realized that I am often in a duckfoot position and by rotating my feet in to be straight forward I can feel it in the muscle.
So the concept is that some long-term imbalance in my hip complex of muscles allowed this one particular muscle to become irritated or strained in some way that made it spasm and tighten up, and to fix it and prevent it I have both keep that little muscle stretched while doing other stretches to keep the whole area flexible.
Part (n for some large n) of the ongoing series, "It sucks to get old but suckage can sometimes be reduced."
I went to a chiropractor who told me my lower spine was out of alignment. I like him a lot, there's a dog in the office that is walked by the woman who walks Cooper. He'd lay me down on a table and put a warm blanket and an electrostim on my lower back and leave me there. Then he'd come in and crack my neck and my back and lean on me to do a hip stretch. Each time I had to tell him where the problem was - not my lower back but the piriformis muscle in my butt. Then the last time he attached the electrodes to my butt but because the piriformis is so deep it didn't affect it.
I've been doing a lot of reading online and what I've learned is that the concept of "piriformis syndrome" is reasonably new, medicine-wise. Most people present with sciatica - where the there is pain down the sciatic nerve down the leg. This used to be routinely ascribed to spinal issues and an upsettingly large number of people had surgery that caused pain, required a lot of rehab, sometimes left them worse off, and didn't do anything for the sciatica.
I am relatively lucky in that my sciatic nerve doesn't seem to be affected by my misbehaving piriformis; for most people it's:
This back view shows what the problem is - when I stand up after sitting for a while, that inflamed, tight little muscle is getting pushed around against bone in very upsetting, painful ways. Once I stand up I'm OK but there are times I've teared up from the pain.
I went to an orthopedic doctor who is supposed to be experienced in treating sciatica; she gave me that "I went to med school so don't tell me what you've read on the internet" attitude when I was trying to use what I had learned to explain what I was, and wasn't experiencing. Not a good start. She put electrodes on my leg and determined that even though I wasn't feeling nerve pain there was some slight impingement. Then she wanted to give me a shot that she said _might_ help.
After working out for a while, that little muscle is covered by a lot of big muscle and it was a BIG needle. I told her that "might" wasn't enough for me. Then she prescribed ultrasound and electrostim and it was the same as with the chiro - too much muscle in the way. So I didn't go back. She did give me some percodan, though.
Back to the internets. What I've been doing the last couple of days that's noticeably helping is these two stretches:
along with this:
I've been doing this, as well, but with a tennis ball. OW OW OW OW when it hits the spot but it helps.
I also realized that I am often in a duckfoot position and by rotating my feet in to be straight forward I can feel it in the muscle.
So the concept is that some long-term imbalance in my hip complex of muscles allowed this one particular muscle to become irritated or strained in some way that made it spasm and tighten up, and to fix it and prevent it I have both keep that little muscle stretched while doing other stretches to keep the whole area flexible.
Part (n for some large n) of the ongoing series, "It sucks to get old but suckage can sometimes be reduced."
