I got hit with it a week ago - transported to the hospital via ambulance - I need an epidural in my piriformis but can’t get an appt for about 2 weeks from now - meanwhile I’m in a hospital bed and can’t bear weight on my left side - that includes sitting & standing.
Amazing river rafting and California coast road trip with my (adult) D canceled. I’m gutted. And in horrible pain - meds barely touch the pain
I’m meditating, self hypnosis & finally got approval for my acupuncturist to visit - hoping she comes tomorrow.
Whatever your choice of good wishes I’ll take them all!
I’m so sorry. Are there any exercises or stretches that might help a bit? Have you got a TENS machine? I found that to be at least a good distraction when I had a herniated disc. You can get one very quickly on Amazon. I hope you feel better soon.
P/T is supposed to start tomorrow - fortunately I am still able to do many stretches laying down. I don’t have a TENS and where I am I have to get authorization - took a week and hoops to get approval for my acupuncturist to visit & treat me. Our healthcare system is terribly broken.
You can get a very effective TENS machine on Amazon or elsewhere for about $25. I urge you to get one. These are compact, the size of a TV remote, and really pack a punch. They are quite miraculous.
My mom’s struggling with this right now, and it’s most literally a PITA and keeping her ftom participating in so many things. No magic bullets here but sympathy!!!
My husband had it for over a year. Very painful. He got it from running every day, I think. It’s finally not as bad and he’s not sure why. He tried PT, massage, etc. Sitting on two sets of two tennis balls taped together and one set of three balls taped together helped the most. He put a towel over them with bungee cords to hold everything together. For quite a long time, he stood at his desk all day because sitting was too painful. Driving or riding in a car was excruciating for him.
No idea at all. I yin yoga daily (not gymnastics just holding poses long for deep stretching) and walk 3 miles a day. It did happen after scrubbing the shower.
I wonder if the yoga contributed to the issue? The reason I say is that I was really into yoga over a decade ago, and can do pretty amazing positions. I have always had flexible hips and normally sit cross legged (criss cross applesauce our kids would say, it’s no longer PC to say what we called it as kids) and after a few years of yoga, it hurt greatly to sit that way, around the piriformis. Yin yoga was totally not for me as I am really too flexible & those deep stretches exacerbated that, what I know know is a weakness. To this day I drive with a lacrosse ball under one hip as it feels like my femur is going to fallout of my hip socket.
It’s really annoying and it has taken years of being careful not to overstretch to see much recovery from the chronic feelings. I do the “4” stretch all the time to stretch the piriformis area, in my imagination that muscle spasmed trying to do it’s work and that which the lazy ligaments should have been doing.
I would guess this is not a common situation, most people seem to be tight not stretchy and as I age I have other loose ligament issues arising, so this might not be your issue, but if you are amazingly flexible, especially for our age, then consider it. It took half a dozen appointments with one medical provider about pain in a particular area where everything looked “great” to him, but so much pain & then in watching more and more carefully the dynamics of the related movement, he told me it’s my loose ligaments letting things move beyond where they are meant to move & causing inflammation.
