So, your but hurts?  We previously talked about how sciatica can cause a pain in the butt… but so can piriformis syndrome.

What is Piriformis Syndrome?

The Piriformis is a muscle in the rear end. In your butt. Wheusn it gets tight you can have pain in the tush.  How many more words can we find fro butt? This is fun…

Ok, Ok, so pain in the rump.  What else?  So because the sciatic nerve runs right under (and sometimes in some people it runs right through it).  Nerves don’t like being squished.  When you squish a nerve they do things like get all tingly or numb.  The sciatic nerve, if squished by the piriformis muscle can cause pain, tingling and/or numbness down the leg into the thigh, lower leg and/or foot.

What can you do about piriformis syndrome?

Several things can help with piriformis syndrome:

stretching

ice

massage

and of course chiropractic care.

 

What causes piriformis syndrome?

The piriformis muscle can become tight for any number of reasons and cause piriformis syndrome. Many things including prolonged sitting, injury, prolonged standing and repetitive strain can cause this problem.  It is really common in runners.

 

Easy stretches

One thing that you can do to help a tight piriformis muscle is the piriformis stretch.  See the YouTube video of me doing this one…  Remember to hold a stretch for 20-30 seconds at a minimum to have it make an impact and lengthen the muscle.