Whenever the Piriformis muscle becomes stiff or inflamed it sometimes will place pressure on nerve roots in the lower back, generally called the ’sciatic nerve’. As this occurs it often will cause a severely painful situation known as Piriformis Syndrome. Piriformis Syndrome is regularly misdiagnosed as sciatica, and can be caused by either over-use or under-use of the muscle, straining the muscle, inflammation, trigger points (muscle knots), or weakness because of muscle imbalances.
Piriformis Syndrome is oftentimes overlooked and improperly diagnosed as ’sciatica’ because of the fact that it will often cause the numbing and prickling sensation in the legs that are often associated with sciatica. It’s hard to diagnose Piriformis Syndrome correctly, but it is the significant hypothesis if there is sciatic nerve pain with no any injury to discs or the spine.
This dreadful condition may also be caused through dormant gluteal muscles, specifically the gluteus minimus and the gluteus medius. The gluteal muscles are used to rotate the leg and protract the hip. Short hip flexors are one of the reasons for underused gluteal muscles, which is usually caused by too much sitting. This makes the piriformis and hamstring muscles work more than they are designed to, that may lead to an over-worked piriformis muscle.
If Piriformis Syndrome is being caused by weak or tight muscle groups, a general way to reverse it is to stretch the muscles tight, and build the muscles which are weak. This is oftentimes known as muscle balance therapy. A well formed exercise program that targets muscle groups in the accurate way can repress or eliminate the symptoms and anguish of Piriformis Syndrome.
A different common contributor to Piriformis Syndrome is trigger points, also described as muscle knots. Trying to get to these trigger points will often be difficult, but once you have placed a trigger point it is often quite simple to rectify. Trigger points can be broken up by using medium-hard pressure on the tight muscle fibers that are holding the ‘knot’. Although, this usually will be bitterly painful to do, but it often only needs around 30 seconds of applied pressure before the trigger points break up.
A good way to reduce the pain of Piriformis Syndrome is to learn to stretch the piriformis muscle. Which helps reduce the pressure being placed on the nerves.
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