Today may just be your lucky day. The condition is called Piriformis Syndrome (aka Pain in the Butt) and the cause for me was poor sitting posture in a non-ergonomic designed chair for extended periods of time without getting up and walking/stretching/moving. I battled the condition for about 2 years and it’s difficult to explain how painful and debilitating the condition is to someone else without actually experiencing it for themselves.
Over the course of 2 years I tried (not necessarily in this order); stretching every which way, deep strong massage, the rubber ball, the foam roller, Advil, OxyContin, Percocet, trigger point massage, Tens electro stimulation, ultrasound, 3-4 different Physical Therapists, Yoga, Cortisone shot in piriformis muscle, hot baths, Fentanyl transdermal pain patch, and a few others I can’t think of at the moment.
The Tens electro stim works, Cortisone shots for a short period of time and provided some relief, deep piriformis massage with a very heavy duty ($175 at Brookstone) electronic massager (I broke 3 other lesser quality massagers on it), and obviously the pain pills helped. Most all of these provided some relief but only temporary, the pain is very, very, very, persistent, did I say very..
Anyway I was seeing a back doctor at the time and he wanted to do surgery on my spine, he said I had a compressed disk that was causing the problem. In researching the procedure more often than not back surgery can create more problems than it solves to I decided to get a second opinion so I went to Mayo Clinic.
I was pretty much self-diagnosed by this time (Piriformis Syndrome) so at Mayo they worked with me and ran all sorts of tests, x-rays, MRIs, and better pain meds. Mayo is where I got the Cortisone shots.
To make a very long story short in the end what cured it was a Botox shot in the piriformis mucsle. The piriformis never really gets a chance to rest and normalize from the inflammation and the Botox shot paralyzes the muscle long enough (3 months) for the inflammation to come down.
Once it’s healed just make sure you don’t do anything to set it off again. It’s been about 4 years now since the cure and it hasn’t come back, although I can feel it from time to time getting aggravated. I corrected my sitting posture and my employer purchased me a very nice chair and I make it a habit now to go for a walk every hour or so.
Good luck, you’ll need it…