Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Things You'd Never Know

This weekend I was visiting one of my favorite Facebook pages, Run Like a Mother: The Book, and saw someone's post about piriformis syndrome. I had no clue what that even was, so I Googled it. Lo and behold! I now have the name for the pain I felt a few weeks ago, the one where I found the knot between my hip and spine using my foam roller.

The bad news is, that pain is back today. Weird how things sometimes work out like that. For those of you that are just as clueless as me  curious, here's a visual:


The piriformis is that triangular muscles between your hip and spine, right on the sciatic nerve. Yep, there's the problem. It's hurts when that muscle gets irritated enough to bother that nerve.

It's interesting that a lot of the stretches to ease the pain are the same ones I use for my IT Bands. It makes you wonder if there's some sort of connection there too.

So, I've already foam rolled this evening, and I'll be working on the stretches as we watch the Rangers game. I know going to the chiropractor would probably help, but frankly, right now, that's not in the budget. The good news is that it doesn't hurt when I run...just walk, sit, stand, etc.

I still think it's odd how I never even knew this muscle existed, never found a cause of the pain a few weeks ago, and now that mine hurts again, I see a random post about it. Now, if only I can get some relief.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Christy,

    I landed on your blog a few weeks ago and am really enjoying it. I'm running my first half in about 5 weeks.

    I've been suffering from piriformis syndrome for a year now. Sitting on a heating pad to relax the muscles around the nerve and specific hip stretches have helped in the past, but I have stopped stretching before my runs in the last 10 days and I haven't noticed it AT ALL. I think I was exacerbating the problem by spending time stretching before I ran and causing inflammation. Just thought I'd share, I know how annoying it is!!

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  2. Well, stretching before definitely wasn't a problem since I don't really do that. The heat pack advice wa great though and seems to be helping. I'm glad you are getting some relief!

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