Piriformis Syndrome

For several weeks, I've been having pain in my right leg. I describe it as tightness that seems to get worse as I bend my back forward. It has been especially painful every time I get in or out of my car.

It has been getting worse recently and it reached its climax while I've been on vacation with my family in Florida. It became so painful that I couldn't sit down or stand up without intense pain shooting down my leg. I finally went to a walk-in clinic last Saturday. After talking with me and manipulating my leg a little bit, the doctor was convinced that I have piriformis syndrome. The way he described it, one of the muscles in the lower back, upper buttocks region, called the piriformis, has a hole in it through which the sciatic nerve passes. Looking online, that doesn't appear to be true for everyone. For those people whose sciatic nerve doesn't pierce the piriformis, the nerve may be surrounded by the piriformis, other muscles, and/or part of the hip bone. But I'm not entirely sure how those pieces all fit together.

In any case, it appears that when the piriformis muscle becomes tight for long periods of time, it can become inflamed or produce spasms that pinch the sciatic nerve causing pain to shoot down the leg. This makes me feel a little more sympathetic to my wife who endured some sciatic pain during pregnancy. The pain has been pretty awful.

To help me enjoy my vacation a little more, the doctor gave me some steroids to reduce inflammation, muscle relaxants, and pain medicine. The pain medicine has helped me sleep a little better and the other two seem to have given me incredible relief. I no longer feel pain changing positions, though there is still a sense of tightness and occasional slight pain. It appears the drugs will get me through in the short term and then some kind of physical therapy will be needed to fix the problem more permanently.

Reading up on the syndrome, it appears that periods of prolonged sitting can be a cause of the syndrome. I found this article to be particularly helpful. I certainly do a lot of sitting at work, but it may be that the drive to Florida was enough to help me reach my climax of pain once we got here.

I have thought a lot recently about the stress I'm under at work and the impact it has had on my health and family. I am confident that this muscle problem has been exacerbated by the stress I've been enduring and I have concluded that the stress is simply not worth it. I have to make some changes in my work situation to relieve some of that stress. What exactly those changes will be, I don't know yet, but I have a few ideas I'm kicking around.