Pain in the Ass

My left hip/butt has been excruciatingly painfulbothering me for a few months now. I should get it checked out. Of course I know I should get it checked out. But seeing my primary doc, to get a referral to the higher-copay ortho doc, to get an MRI scheduled, to be prescribed physical therapy that I can't afford, seemed like a very expensive rabbit hole (which under normal circumstances would be a stretch, but I'm on the hook for $500 of a big car repair, so, yikes [fucking deer fucking running into me]). My leg isn't falling off, and I'm not even taking Advil or Aleve most days, so I've been fine with just sucking it up.

Until!

Today, the super lovely Josie posted on FB this article, "A Common Cause of Low Back and Sciatic Pain — The Piriformis." Through some web-sleuthing, I'd become pretty sure that the culprit was my insanely tight piriformis, but all the stretching in the world hadn't been helping, just making the pain worse (which is can be pretty characteristic of fibromyalgia, but that could be another post entirely).

The article discusses trigger point therapy and self-myofascial release, even backing up (in the comments section) the idea that stretching is not helpful until the trigger point is released. This is sort of groundbreaking for me to hear.

Doing the work with the foam roller and a tennis ball will be hard; it will be painful. I am notoriously bad at following through on commitments to do anything for more than a week; the writer recommends starting with two weeks of daily work. But it's the least (and least-expensive thing!) I can do for myself to try to bust up the knots that have so negatively affected my quality of life the past few months, specifically.

Perseverance has never been a strong suit of mine, but now's as good a time as any to work on that. I can't wait to get home tonight to sit on a tennis ball.