piriformis and aching through night (Read 866 times)

I've been pouring over the "search" feature and the Net in general but haven't found anything specific about this. Does anyone know if it's common for piriformis pain to actually wake you in the night? In the past week I've been dealing with what certainly feels like piriformis after stupidly using an OTC arch support on one side only, combined with "homemade" padding in my shoe to deal with a bunion problem. But along with the localized extremely sore spot in the "jeans back pocket" region and some radiating hip/leg/lower back pain, I'm getting this gnawing ache from the spot at night. Does this sound like piriformis caused by running with an uneven gait? I'm so disappointed with myself for causing an injury at a time when I'm actually being very careful to go slowly, etc. I've done a lot of running on the TM lately too including my 8m long runs, which might have been foolish. I much prefer my gait outside. Anyhoo. Just feeling like crud on a cracker and would appreciate some support. I have stopped running and am doing a number of stretches for the muscle and the tennis ball massage and it does seem to help at least in the short term. Last night I got up and put some muscle cream on it and the pain did ease up.

Hmm. Ironically my left side (the sore side) is the only way I can get a good night's sleep. So I guess that's not helping. I haven't tried massage yet, except for the tennis ball. I have zero spending money right now which is why I was experimenting with cheap shoe inserts in the first place. Thanks for responding. Is this something you can/should run through? It seems like some people sort of get it under control and then run in spite of it.

I definitely can't say whether you should run through it or not. I'm not really sure what that could lead to, if anything??

Thanks again. Just wanted to clarify that I do intend to take a break and do whatever I need to do to get past the acute stage of this before running again. I've just read some posts where people are obviously still running/training before it's completely gone and I don't want to lose all of my conditioning if I don't have to. I've only been doing the stretches, etc. for the last few days and it's already feeling a bit better.

I do Yoga and go to a chiropractor. Seems to help a lot.

opps- echorun is my DW- I was working on setting up her account and posted under her name- it's me... slaptear thats fighting the problem, not her

Hi Fly I have had this problem on and off for most of my running. It seems to flare up every once in a while - like now and I continue to run through it. I went to physiotherapy for it once but I think that's not very helpful. I feel it in the night because I have a cat that likes to sleep on my calves which pulls the piriformis. And no, I'm not getting rid of the cat. I was told to do clam shell exercises and squats, the bridge and figure 4 stretch. There are some here: http://jaxmed.com/massage/pirformis_stretches.htm and lots more on the web - even YouTube. The time it hurts the worst is when I sit for long periods of time and it does slow my running. I find that each flare takes about 6 weeks to fix using the stretches. Best of luck with your recovery Ruru

One thing that helped me a lot is the Yoga pose "pigeon". Look it up and try it. I had to start stretching my piriformis a lot after I injured my back, The PT recommended the pigeon pose. Hope you feel better soon ... MTA: Duh - you're already doing the pigeon I see.

Fly--Same deal. I tripped and "jammed" my right hip (slang for piriformis) a few months back. I noticed a problem when sleeping on either side, although the injured side was worse. I've gone back to sleeping on my back and the problem has cleared up. I also started stretching better before going out. Good luck. TC