Dean has been to everyone about pain in his glute, hip and pelvis… the Guru thinks irritated sciatic nerve

November 14, 2014

Hi There

I live in Romford and im thinking of coming down to London to get treatment. I used the cross trainer quite excessively for a few weeks and got dull pains deep within my glute piriformis area.

The pains went, and i started weight training again. I injured my back slightly doing squats and the pain died down after a day or so. After i went back to training i was putting the weights back and felt a bit of a pull. That dies down but a new pain has arrived which is in my deep glute on my left side which can run down the side of thigh to the top of my calf. The pain is usually in 1 of the 3 places rather than all at the same time.

This pain is also accompanied by a stiff hip / pelvic region. NO pain in my back at all.

The way to replicate the pain is stand up straight tilt my head forward and lift me leg slightly straightened. Id say the positions that set it off would be sitting for to long / deep chairs seem worse. Also standing for to long in one position I laid on the floor for a whole day once and i didnt have any pain but as soon as i got back to regular life it flared up again.

Iv been to see EVERYONE and just cant shake it off. Chriopractor reckons i got a twisted pelvis which is pinching sciatic nerve /after a run of adjustments it cleared up but after a couple of days it
starts to hurt again. Osteopath reckons just muscle spasms due to my stiff hip, GP reckons sacro ligament damage and gave me ibuprofen, Physio reckons piriformis syndrome and says i have no twisted pelvis.

Any stretching seems to relieve then 15 mins later hurt more than before the stretch.
Im 33 and desk job based. Iv had it for about 8-10 weeks now PLEASE HELP OUT IF YOU CAN answers appreciated in advance

Six Physio Website

Dean
November 14, 2014

Hi Dean

Poor you…really this is not cool.

You’ve got a single cause giving multiple symptoms – you need to deal with the why, not the what’s.

SIJ, twisted pelvis, piriformis, glut are symptoms – treating them may make you feel better, but they are never the cause. You need to get better, not just feel better.

You’ve got a fairly classic description of an irritated sciatic nerve – giving a variety of symptoms and confirmed by you tilting your head forward and lifting your leg. You don’t just wake up with an irritated nerve….it happens because of something.

This nerve can be irritated by the nerve itself, the disc, the joints – all structural things, which are all influenced by how you move, and this key.

You’ve got a bit of your lower back that has too much movement (joint play, not necessarily range), which you struggle to control. This means that the joint “crashes” about and irritates the structures in the near vicinity, which gives you your pain. The reason why your lower back moves too much is that it compensates for another part of your body that doesn’t move enough – and that’s why your “gross” range of movement doesn’t get any more, intact due to the pain it gets less.

The most common bit of body that stiffens up is your thoracic spine – and because it stiffens up you very rarely feel that its stiff…if the joints don’t move, you don’t get any feeling back! You thoracic spine stiffens up due to poor postural sets – computer, phone, TV etc. Until you are given the ability to move more through here, your lower back will continue to over compensate and remain painful.

You don’t need any further movement around your lumbar spine or SIJ or pelvis. You don’t need your glut or performs stretched – these muscles are stiff, they are trying to protect your back. If you stretch them, yes they’ll feel looser, but you now got more motion, less control and the pain will increase.

…this should all sound pretty familiar to you, and hopefully makes lots of sense as to what you need to do next….that’s get your thoracic spine moving, knock any sort of stretching on the head and start to control and stabilise your lumbar spine!

How does that sound?

The Guru

Six Physio

A big thank you from Dean:

Wow thanks so much for getting back  to me that sounds great. I really like the way you look at things as well in the fundamental reasons for these injuries occurring as opposed to treating just the condition. You cleared up something I was confused with as well, people often say ‘excessive movement’ but I say no it’s not because it’s stiff . So I now understand the difference between movement and range.

Il arrange a time to come in when I’m back. You defo are a guru il give ya that

Thanks again

Dean

Guru Responded

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