So Tom just gave me a 2-hour massage and did something bizarre to the front of my hipbones. The... ileacus... and the psoas, and the quadratus lumborum, and the ileotemporal band (which I agree is a great name for a rock group) and finally... stabbingly and with yelling agony but one could tell the productive kind... through all sorts of layers of ouch to the errant piriformis.
I had no idea the whole enormous muscle coating the insides of my hipbones were hellishly aflame with evil. He went for them right away, and I had a "no absolutely not, that just isn't comfortable" reaction, it felt so awful. "Besides, that's not where I hurt." Huh. Yes, it was where I hurt. Weird! And now I can move my leg all the way forward, instead of lurching with my entire right side stiff to drag the leg. He also said that it seems like a piriformis or muscle thing and the whole thing could be muscle spasms or at least the truly awful part, and it isn't necessarily a slipped disk.
The not true part was that he would massage me till I was done with it. I could have gone 4 hours easy.
I'm in way less pain, and I can move my leg!
Hmmm... piriformis syndrome and other sciatica information here...nervemed.com. I know, not the best of sources! Here, there's some talk of toes and feet and pain and low back pain. My back hurts, AND my butt hurts, and all my toes hurt. Huh. Whatever.
I'm working on rotating my leg outwards while doing the different physical therapy exercises. That seems like it's stretching the right spot. Pre-massage I couldn't tell that was true - everything was too tight and painful to move.
So even if it is a herniated disk, there's clearly a whole other level of evil that the massage helped.
Okay, here's a better source: the merck manual on piriformis syndrome.
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