has anyone any experience of how to erradicate it? stretches? solutions? does anyone know a good physio in the south lancs region?

First, wazzizit?

muscle in your but that when strained rubs on the sciatic nerve, causes pain in the buttocks and down the leg though the hamstring. painful although its not as bad as it has been?!

should specify that its only on one side

Stretches and a tennis ball against a wall worked into the sore point.

Worked for a friend and keeps my sciatica at bay.

so….. get a tennis ball a rest against the wall with it pressed into the sore area, that right?

Google? I found lots of useful online advice for IT band trouble causing knee pain.

(Not trying to be flippant.)

i’ve looked and there’s loads of descriptions but hardly anything on how to CURE it. it all says go to a physio and pay £30-40 per hour! if you find some solutions please insert a link

Stating the obvious here but could it be caused by race type saddles?

As I hear race type saddle can cause damaged blood vessels and can have the type of symptons you have mentioned.

well not with mine, injured my hip running a few months ago which in turn has caused perfiformis syndrome. i’ve had some treatment then it went away. came back the other weekend. can’t afford another 2 months of physio at £320 a month so looking for some cheaper, home solutions?

I am having physio at the moment for something very similar if not exactly the same. I had sciatica first and am now left with what you describe.

http://www.massageme.com.au/pics/Stretches.jpg

If you paste the link above I have been doing the 4 stretches at the bottom plus a few others.

If you do a google image search for “Piriformis stretches” you can see the last one in more detail.

I suffer with this (quite rare in men tends to be a female problem) – the good news is the stretches suggest by eggbox will work the bad news is that, certainly in my case, its recurrent & is a real pain in the arse (pun intended) – If found that it does not effect or restrict my riding – just every thing else

do the last stretch in the picture but flip over and lie on your bent leg. You’ll really feel the stretch. After a good warm up you can feel the muscle spasm and let go after holding it for over a minute. Painful but feels great afterwards.

This sounds very similar to what I’ve been getting the last couple of months, I’ve been doing the first 3 stretches at the bottom of the link as well as more core strengthening excercises in the last 2 to 3 weeks and it’s made a real difference.

I_did_dab – interested in that 4th stretch, but confused by your ‘flip over and lie on your bent leg’, if you’re in the exact position as the image do you mean you would lie on your left or right side?

I think he means this one below

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/piri.2.html

Ah, brilliant, thanks Eggbox

What does the pain feel like? At worst mine feels like a dull ache whilst running and stiffness after. Not sure if it is piriformis or something different.

Eggbox – tick! That’s the one. Nice site 😀
The trick is to relax and let your body weight do the work. Moderate alcohol consumption can help if your muscle is locked up.

I’ve had it since August. I’ve had a course of physio and I’m unfortunate for that to have had no effect. I’m having 3 weeks of full time physio / rehab therapy in March in an attempt to nail it. You do need to be sure that it is piriformis and if you are lucky, the stretches etc will sort you better than me.

Working on aductor and abductor muscles is suppsed to be very good for it. A ‘spikey ball’ is better than a tennis ball – google and you’ll find them.

My pain centres in the left buttock and radiates up and down, more down, as far as the back of my knee. It can be cripplingly sore. If you have any loss of sensitivity in the groin, pins and needles or numbness, get a doc to look immediately – all ‘red’ indicators of associated issues.

HTH a bit.

all sound like good ideas, i’ve had it for about 3 months now but i have to say that mine had cleared up until i broke my bike and then proceeded to run back to the car with it! not a clever idea?

the way that i solved it before was rest, but that was nearly two months off the bike and from the gym, i’m trying these stretches and they seem to be working, guess we’ll see.

thanks for all the hints and tips people!