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Piriformis injury sufferers
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Yes, I did search the forums, but no luck on what I want. How long did it take you to recover? anything to speed up recovery? It causes me pain when I sleep so I am losing sleep but got some muscle relaxers prescribed. I can use a stair master, just throwing my leg out or down gives the sharp pain
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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More history or specifics please. Spinal related or overuse injury? Entrapment or caused by stenosis? Been to a physician? Short answer without knowing more is it may never totally go away. I've dealt with this for years as a runner but triathlon has been a challenge managing the pain. The latest in physical therapy has helped, but mine is spinal related so depending on some diagnoses variables YMMV.
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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N=1
Mine's been a lingering condition for the past 2 years. Surgery was presented to me by an Ortho MD, but he suggested I explore alternate treatments if I wanted to do so. Osteopaths & traditional PT help greatly, but my running has been curtailed to 4x/week. Stretching, strengthening & the occasional OTC pill are part of the regime. Good luck.

#swimmingmatters
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
The Doctor (#12)

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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [LazyEP] [ In reply to ]
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mine was spinal related, bulging disc + spinal stenosis = irritated nerve and piriformis being aggravated all the time. i eventually required surgery and a long bout of rehab after disc ruptured and did some serious damage to stuff. i really enjoy putting socks on now and not wanting to put a gun in my mouth though
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [RONDAL] [ In reply to ]
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likely over use injury but what im hearing from you guys so far is making my jaw drop to the floor :/
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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This video should fix you up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFtUgS69rPk That's me in it, quite a few years ago. Read the comments and make sure to quit sleeping, driving, and sitting with your leg splayed over to the side. That's what's causing it. If you keep doing what's causing it, you'll never get cured.

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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synthetic wrote:
likely over use injury but what im hearing from you guys so far is making my jaw drop to the floor :/

there's so many causes of piriformis irritation, so without knowing more about the individual its hard to give a solution. depending on the cause, what works for someone may not make a lick of difference to another.

i tried everything, including a lot of the stuff posted in the video above, and it did nothing but provide temporary relief, because ultimately the root cause was upstream of the piriformis and lay with a bulged disc and spinal stenosis.
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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To make you feel better, I fixed mine - after it being misdiagnosed for a year as a strained back - in about two days. Stretching, trigger point... Boom. Have you tried acupuncture? It's helped when my piriformis starts to bark.
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [texafornia] [ In reply to ]
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"That's what's causing it." A rather overreaching statement (at best). Once again. We are all an N=1 & what worked for you may not work for everyone else. One size does not fit all. Piriformis "flossing" was one of the many suggestions provided to me by an osteopath. Overuse & biomechanics are my causes. For me, surgery was an option to treat the symptoms but would not get to the root cause.




#swimmingmatters
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
The Doctor (#12)

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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [texafornia] [ In reply to ]
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texafornia wrote:
This video should fix you up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFtUgS69rPk That's me in it, quite a few years ago. Read the comments and make sure to quit sleeping, driving, and sitting with your leg splayed over to the side. That's what's causing it. If you keep doing what's causing it, you'll never get cured.

woah dude thanks , did what you said and feels good like when ART guy treated me
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [LazyEP] [ In reply to ]
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LazyEP wrote:
"That's what's causing it." A rather overreaching statement (at best). Once again. We are all an N=1 & what worked for you may not work for everyone else. One size does not fit all. Piriformis "flossing" was one of the many suggestions provided to me by an osteopath. Overuse & biomechanics are my causes. For me, surgery was an option to treat the symptoms but would not get to the root cause.




Sure, be negative about a possible solution that takes 5 minutes and then go enthusiastically after surgery instead. lol. (rolls eyes) Have fun!

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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synthetic wrote:
texafornia wrote:
This video should fix you up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFtUgS69rPk That's me in it, quite a few years ago. Read the comments and make sure to quit sleeping, driving, and sitting with your leg splayed over to the side. That's what's causing it. If you keep doing what's causing it, you'll never get cured.


woah dude thanks , did what you said and feels good like when ART guy treated me

So glad I could help! Mine was TERRIBLE until I started doing that. I don't need to do the stretches anymore, just make sure I don't splay the leg over to the side when driving, sleeping, whatever.

The piriformis is the muscle that twists your leg outwards. If you lay or sit with your leg that way for a long time, something about that causes the muscle to clench up and then get inflamed. If your sciatic nerve runs near or through that muscle (around 10% of people), then the nerve gets pinched and you get sciatica down that leg. Contrary to what Mr. Negativepants argued against earlier, this is a biomechanical issue, since it's something you're doing with your body position. Which is nice because all you have to do is stop doing what's causing it and it goes away. Just like you can adjust your saddle height to make your knee pain go away.

If you're getting this from a pinched nerve in your back or whatever, then it's not piriformis syndrome. The problem is not in the piriformis, therefore not the syndrome. You can tell if it's piriformis if you feel a knot in your butt cheek that is painful when you sit on it. You can kinda work it out with a tennis ball, but relief is extremely temporary.

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [texafornia] [ In reply to ]
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i still can't get over the fact that you are rolling around on a hotel room floor. Yuck. ;-)

texafornia wrote:
This video should fix you up. Whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFtUgS69rPk That's me in it, quite a few years ago. Read the comments and make sure to quit sleeping, driving, and sitting with your leg splayed over to the side. That's what's causing it. If you keep doing what's causing it, you'll never get cured.
Last edited by: imsparticus: Mar 1, 15 11:27
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [imsparticus] [ In reply to ]
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i was happy to not walk like gimp decided to try to jog, no luck back to square one. I will continue the stretches and have to take baby steps
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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Suffered from that like 10 years ago,

Treatment was essencially very specific stretching. recovery speed was about uuuuuh 2-3 weeks and it really depends on how much suffering you can handle with those stretching "workouts". This was of course done with a pro supervision...

=====================================
S�rgio Marques
When it hurts is when it feels good ;-)
Sergio-Marques.com
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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I had the syndrome three years ago, a result of overtraining, too much stretching, and some biomechanics. I'm lucky: a massage therapist managed to reduce the pain by about 90% in two treatments, and rebalancing my training did the rest. In my case, I'm aware that the probability of re-injury is high, simply because of biomechanics, but seeing the massage therapist keeps me going. Interestingly, this is one area where a foam roller or massage ball haven't help. I seem to hit all the wrong muscles when I try treating this on my own.

As someone else mentioned, everyone is different. You really need to analyse your situation and see if the piriformis is the primary issue or a secondary one. The entire gluteal area and part of the body where that muscle attaches is quite complex.
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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Mine was caused by a road bike frame that was too big which caused my hips to be too far behind the bottom bracket. I didn't realize it until I got a TT bike, sat more forward, and the pain was greatly reduced. Also as I took up tris and used the road bike less, even with the increased running, the pain gradually started to go away. Now with regular stretching, good road and TT positions, and some foam rolling the pain is all but gone. The first stretch in texafornia's video really helped me as well as a lot of "pigeon pose."
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [texafornia] [ In reply to ]
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When I had it in the fall of 2012 I watched this video and followed your instructions and it did eventually get cleared up in time for race season 2013. I would do the stretches a number of times a day (I have a desk job) and even now if I feel the area getting sore or stiff I will do them.

Patti in NJ
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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I have had both piriformis syndrome and high hamstring tendinopathy. I suggest getting a confirming MRI to rule out the tendinopathy. The symptoms are very similar but the treatment is much different and what helps piriformis syndrome can aggravate and delay proper healing of the other. When I had piriformis syndrome it got so bad I had foot flop. I was shown the typical stretches and within 2-3 weeks I was 90% better. This was many years ago and before the internet so little information was available at the time.

Good luck with it.

Jim

Jim Lukanich
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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I got caught running in a T-storm on a downhill. Foot slipped. Injured my piraformis. Wow! Literally couldn't sit. Driving I had to use an O cushion. I couldn't run for a month and then it took another 2 months to get over it. Time. It just takes time to heal.
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Re: Piriformis injury sufferers [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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Mine started about April last year & got so bad mid year I was having trouble walking properly after a run. My hamstrings felt like they'd lost all strength & moving my leg forward was an effort that hurt. Physio was of the opinion that I'd just got so out of balance with too much S/B/R & not enough strength & stretch work that my glutes & hammies had stopped firing properly. What worked in order:

Physio's house of pain
Accupuncture
Hard ball massage on the butt & hamstrings
Hard ball on the car seat
Specific strengthening exercises with therabands
Yoga - sun salutations
Better seating at work (more support at the back of my butt)
Split squats
One leg deadlifts
Reverse planks working to one leg
Cobblers pose
Pigeon pose
Ankle on knee stretch
Runners lunge after every run

Well on the mend now but there was no magic bullet and there will be on-going strength & stretch in my routine from now on.
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