Best Self Treatment Techniques To Get Rid Of Piriformis Syndrome

hey guys dr. Christy Ennis today I want to go over with you the best forms of self treatment for piriformis syndrome now piriformis is probably a word you've heard before but it's actually a muscle and it can truly be a pain in the butt hahaha because that's where that muscle is so it starts over in the sacrum and then comes right into this bone and attaches on the side of the hip and that bone is called your greater trochanter you don't have to memorize any of this stuff just know that it's this muscle back here in the butt so sometimes pain in the butt can come from that muscle other times it can actually come from the spine check out my video on sciatica to make sure that you don't have anything coming from that lumbar spine that can also cause pain in the butt and then pain down the leg so today though we're talking about this muscle how to get that feel better to get that to feel better and then also that helps the back of the leg pain to feel better too so step one is you want to actually get some blood flow going in there and loosen it up so self massage or you could go get a massage that's always awesome too but that's definitely the way to go that's the first thing you want to start with now you want to make sure that you don't go too deep so I actually don't recommend sitting on a foam roller or using a tennis ball because the sciatic nerve runs underneath through or on top of that piriformis muscle so if that muscle is tight and that nerve runs underneath or through it all you're gonna do is cause compression into that nerve and let me tell you nerves get really pissed off if you smush them they don't like that at all so a lot of times people go well it kind of feels good and then they go ah that really doesn't feel good so you want to go gentle to the area so I'm actually gonna use the derma edge to do that it helped save my hand a little bit I'm gonna go in a little bit of a cross-legged position just to put that muscle on stretch a little and then it's literally super duper gentle in one direction you can play around and figure out which way feels the best and you're gonna do that until you go okay that's a little left tight in yucky feeling okay once you do that then you're going to follow it up with a stretch and two of my favorites are lying down so you're gonna cross that ankle over that leg and then as long as it feels okay you're gonna bring those hands underneath that opposite thigh and bring it right up towards your chest okay so you're stretching all of that left side out sometimes that one feels like a little bit too much so I'll have people start with their foot on the ground and then you can actually again crossing that ankle over and then just bringing that knee across to the opposite shoulder sometimes feels a little bit better so 30 seconds to a minute really let yourself relax into it and if you're doing this one sometimes if you actually play around with the angle you'll feel a little bit more of a stretch not a pain that's SuperDuper important just a stretch okay so once you've got blood flow going loosened up it's all lovely and stretch then you can go ahead and work on the strengthening of it you can do this on the bed or on the floor same thing with any of these two first two that I just showed you but you're gonna go right onto your stomach cross that ankle and then make sure you keep your neck in mind here to don't hurt that but then we're gonna lift and rotate that knee right up try not to lean with it right you're just using that left leg so make sure that this one doesn't hurt you may have to wait a little bit before you're able to start the strengthening part but you want to shoot for about 10 to 15 repetitions and just once a day is good so start with the soft tissue work follow it up with a stretch once that feels good you're going to add that strengthening in so that you can totally get rid of that pain so thank you so much for tuning in today check out my website at dr. Christiana STATCOM and you can follow me on instagram – at dr. crystianna's thanks guys