Got misdiagnosed by PT, wasted months doing mindless exercise, turns out it was Piriformis Syndrome.
About 8 months ago I started getting this sciatic-type pain. I didn’t know where it came from. I was working out lightly, so I thought maybe it was that.
After about a month, I went to a medical massage therapist. He told me it was piriformis syndrome. He said my glute area was extremely tight and he was pretty confident about it. He even told me there’s no point going to a physio. At first I believed him, but I didn’t stay consistent with the stretches, so the pain stayed.
Later I went to a physical therapist. I told him I think it’s piriformis syndrome. He immediately shut it down and said piriformis is very rare and that it’s my posture. He focused everything on my lower back and posture. I did about 8 sessions. All posture work, lower back exercises, sciatica routines, etc. Nothing worked. After a few months it actually got worse. I couldn’t sit in a car, couldn’t sit normally, had to lie down most of the day. At that point I gave up on physio.
Then I randomly decided to try the piriformis-type stretches again, but this time consistently.
Main ones:
Pigeon stretch
Sitting on a chair, ankle over knee, leaning forward
And honestly… it was almost immediate relief.
Like 90% better.
I was confused because I had tried them before, but I guess I wasn’t consistent enough.
I kept doing them daily for a couple weeks, and now the pain is almost gone. It still comes back a bit, but whenever I stretch, it goes away again. So I’m 99% certain it’s piriformis syndrome.
In retrospective maybe the best first move is to get an MRI, which would’ve skipped all this nonsense.