Why Do I Have This Back Side Pain?

People experience many different types of pain in various locations all around the lower back, the base of the spine and all around the back side or buttocks area. The muscles in these areas are all interrelated so finding the cause of the pain can be a bit of a challenge.

Back side pain can often be attributed to a condition known as Piriformis Syndrome. Piriformis Syndrome is one of four conditions that can cause Sciatica. Sciatica is the pain you may feel originating in your back side and running down your leg.

Piriformis syndrome is a condition that occurs when the sciatic nerve is compressed or irritated by the piriformis muscle causing pain, tingling and/or numbness in the buttocks and along the path of the sciatic nerve as it travels down the leg. The piriformis muscle may become tight or inflamed and compress the sciatic nerve or the pelvis may move out of alignment. When the pelvis becomes misaligned, it can cause the muscles and nerves to shift which could also cause the sciatic nerve to be irritated. When either of these things occur, you will no doubt experience some back side pain.

The problem is that both of these conditions could exist at the same time and the frustration lies in the fact that you could be focusing on fixing the one problem, not knowing the other exists so you would only be doing part of what is necessary to get relief. Failure to identify all causes will undoubtedly lead to unnecessary and prolonged suffering.

This is when you need to really sit down and think about what has changed in your life in the past couple of years. Have you changed jobs that do the same repetitive motions through the day? Has your posture changed at all? Do you bend over more than you used to? Is there any routine where you have to lift your leg in the air maybe to step over something? Has there been any kind of trauma to the back side? What you need to look for is any changes in your lifestyle or day to day activities that have changed and could be causing the piriformis muscle to tighten or your pelvis to change its alignment.

Do a quick little test. I’m guessing you are sitting on a chair right now to read this. Look down at the position of your feet. Are they pointed inward, straight ahead, or outward? If they are pointed outward, chances are your piriformis muscle is tight.

If your piriformis muscle is not tight, the second factor that could be causing your back side pain may be the position of your pelvis. A misaligned pelvis is much harder to identify on yourself but consider these motions. Every day you do certain motions that will rotate your hips the same way. One is getting in and out of your car. Another is getting in and out of bed. Another could be the way you sit at work and your posture. A woman specific one is holding a baby on your hip. You will do these things the exact same way each and every time and if done wrong, could lead to problems.

Each time you do one of these activities it causes the muscles on one side of the body to be worked harder than the other side. When this occurs, these muscles become stronger and shorter while the muscles on the other side become weaker and elongated. These muscle imbalances over time will pull on your spine and pelvis causing numerous problems which will all lead to problems with posture and could also lead to piriformis syndrome and eventually to sciatica.

Have you already been to some type of health care professional about your back side pain? I’m willing to bet that they didn’t spend ample time with you exploring your daily life and activities and didn’t dig deep enough to get to the root of the problem. Sure, they may have diagnosed you with piriformis syndrome and sciatica but that’s usually as far as they’ll go. You need to address any muscle imbalances and develop a plan to get you lasting relief.

So what do you need to do next? Again, spend some time in deep thought revisiting and assessing your daily activities for things that you are doing now that you didn’t used to do that may be causing your back side pain.

Once identified, think of ways to reverse engineer the problem. An example of this is if you use an elliptical machine for your cardio workout each day, try doing it backwards to start strengthening the complimentary muscles. Or how about someone who always does a targeted exercise like the bench press? This person should consider either stopping the bench press and starting a complimentary exercise that strengthens the upper back. I’m not suggesting that you do either one of these but they serve as examples of how to change your routine so you can stop strengthening one set of muscles while starting to strengthen another. The purpose is to address the muscle imbalances and get the muscles working in perfect harmony again.

You should develop a healing plan that incorporates a whole body assessment and looks for postural dysfunctions and muscle imbalances. It is imperative that you stop what you are currently doing, get assessed, then develop a new stretching and exercise routine based on this assessment.

Other things you can begin with are stress reduction, change in diet, drink more water, inversion therapy and possibly even trigger point therapy.

In the meantime, click here  for a simple but very effective sciatica stretch video that may bring you quick relief from your sciatica pain.