why you should be working out even if you feel young and spry

right before my 24th birthday i started to feel a tightness in my hip/butt on (i think) my left side. having done sports before i obviously knew what a strained muscle felt like and chalked it up to that, spending little time or thought on it, and continuing my life like normal. during or around my birthday things got worse. i had ignored the warning signs and could no longer have a normal day because of the pain. one morning while waking up to send kevin off to work my hip, lower back, and leg were spasming and convulsing so much at any movement that i was sobbing while trying to get out of bed. the pain was worse than period pain, which meant a lot considering my troubles with that, and was almost inconsolable. that was the wake up call & i realized i couldn't pretend this wasn't an issue anymore. after taking pain meds and sleeping i ended up going to the walk in clinic later that day. the doctor diagnosed me with piriformis syndrome, something i had never heard of. he prescribed me muscle relaxers, which for me were not helpful for the pain and upset my stomach, so i did not use very often. instead i started taking pain medicine (ibuprofen) and using tigerbalm and hot pads on the painful area. i had some trouble walking at times though generally i was able to get around fairly well, but not without pain.

as an avid hater of taking ibuprofen regularly i avoided it as much as possible, which meant pain, which meant at some point i got tired of it and started physical therapy. by the time my appointment actually came around, my d.i.y methods of fixing my piriformis (light walking, mindful posture, and laying down most of the time) had worked and at my first appointment i had little to no pain....classic. my physical therapist gave me stretches to do, as well as encouraging me to strengthen the piriformis muscle as well as the more important muscles around the piriformis, that were weak and falling back on the piriformis too much. i did my stretches sometimes, but not as much as i should have, and either way it seemed no matter what i did it would get better for a period of time and then all of a sudden worse. though with about 6-8 weeks of physical therapy i felt mostly better and i graduated! the cycle continued and it would cause pain on one side or both sides at the same time. i avoided this pain as much as i could, i felt helpless in fixing it for good, and was feeling stubborn. it was a harsh reality that something like this could happen to a fairly active, in shape, healthy, young person like me. and for some reason the even harsher reality was that it seemed i would have to commit real time and effort into building a consistent stretching/workout schedule into my already busy life. there was a long period of time that i genuinely thought "i should not have to do all of that to get better, i am too young to have to do all of that", and being stuck in that mindset i continued on the path of getting better for a week or two, and then getting worse for two or three weeks, over and over.

it was not until around late october/early november, 10 months after it began, that i opened my eyes up to the fact that what i was doing was clearly not working. stretching would only do so much before i would accidentally overstretch and make it worse, or feel fine and engage in sports and then overdo it. i started doing core and glute workouts at home, semi consistently at first (maybe twice a week or every other week), and now consistently 4-5 times a week. i don't overdo it, i started with 15 min workouts (look up 15 min core and booty by madfit on youtube for reference) and continued on to do slightly longer ones 20-30 min.

looking anything up online about "how to fix piriformis syndrome" (or literally any health problem for that matter), will leave you full of contradictions about what is best to do and "what actually works". it could be that stuff like this just takes time to figure out exactly what works best for your body, but i did waste a lot of extra time by being in denial. i am now at the point that i have not needed pain meds for close to a month, which is huge.

in the end what ended up working best for me is a mixture of the following:

-pain meds when needed, but if possible resting instead

-lidocaine patches, tiger balm patches, tiger balm in general

-not sitting for long periods of time or with crossed legs

-not sitting with bad posture and with legs up etc (which i used to love doing RIP)

-sleeping on my side with a pillow between my knees and a small pillow by my body, or on my back with the pillow under my knees (used to be a stomach sleeper, still miss that as well RIP)

-less stretching, and less intense stretching

-consistent at home workouts and strengthening of the hip/glute/core/leg muscles

-yin yoga (but not fucking happy baby pose)

-taking walks on flat ground

-being conscious of my posture, especially engaging my core more

-paying attention to my pain and actually addressing it

to finish this out my point is that regularly exercising, even at a low intensity level does wonders for your health. there are so many muscles working together to keep you upright, and if you are using them willy nilly and not being intentional about engaging them with good form and good posture something will become funky one way or another and you could end up with shit to deal with! i feel like i am finally getting back to my normal life again after 11 months and it feels great, i can't wait to be able to run again!