Could This Be Causing All My Sciatic Type Discomfort?
Posted Under: Back Pain Relief Articles
The Piriformis muscle is a pretty important muscle when it comes to lower body health and especially lower back health. Because of where it is situated it can influence many different motions and actions of the body.
Everyone has two of these muscles. One on the right and the other on the left side of your sacrum (tailbone) that run out to your upper leg bones.
The word piriformis is from the latin language and means “pear shaped”. And It is a pear shaped muscle with the “stem” attaching to the “greater trochanter” of your femur bone.
The muscle itself does a number of things. It rotates your hip outward and also helps move your leg away from your body as when you are sitting down. While these motions don’t seem like much, life would be completely different if we couldn’t do them.
One way that the piriformis can cause trouble is when a condition called tendinitis affects the muscle where it attaches to the leg bone. This will lead to a lot of pain at the side of the hip when pressure is applied to it. When this happens, it can be very pain to lay on the affected side and a lot of people have a very difficult time finding a comfortable position to sleep in.
What many people are starting to realize is how the Piriformis will contribute to some pretty severe pains that run up and down the leg or that settle in the low back.
What happens is that when the piriformis gets tight from prolonged sitting, it can “clamp” down on the sciatic nerve as it leaves the spinal column and heads down the leg.
This pressure actually interupts normal nerve signals and causes the nerves to send abnormal signals or impulses to the muscles and other body structures. This can lead to a bunch of problems that many people refer to as “sciatica”.
When people have sciatica they frequently complain of any number of sensations that run from the hip down to the foot. The most common sensation is pain. But, there can also be “electric shocks”, “pins and needles” and also “burning” types of sensations.
Another problem that a tight piriformis can cause is decreased lower back mobility. A normal lumbo-sacral complex has a specific amount of mobility built into it.
When the piriformis muscle gets tight, it locks the sacrum (tailbone) into place and this puts more stress on the lower back requiring it to do more moving than it generally does. This will lead to muscular strains that can cause a lot of pain.
In summary, a tight piriformis is one of the primary cause of lower back pain. It can cause any number of unpleasant and unwanted symptoms. These symptoms are generally thought to be caused by more serious problems.
A tight piriformis does not require surgery to be corrected. Finding a good low back stretches technique will go a long way to helping you stay fit and prevent future back pain.
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Related posts:
- How To Relieve Sciatic Nerve Pain
- Knee Discomfort Doesn’t Have To Limit You Within Your Favorite Activities







Reader Comments
good points you make. and yes i do pretty severe pains that run up and down the leg.
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