I went to a doctor for years of increasing stabbing/pinching pains in my butt cheeks, shooting pains in my legs, and now and again my 3 little toes going numb. By this time I couldn't even so much as fast walk or run across a street to be courteous to a car that was waiting because it hurt like hell... The doctor gave me lidocaine shots and sent me on my way thinking I just pinched a nerve. No reprieve.

I first thought I had bulging or herniated discs causing sciatic pain. Bought a stupid inversion table and I went to a great chiropractor who had me get an MRI done and told me that I did not in fact have herniated discs and the nerves in my back are not compressed. It sucked. 

Stumped he suggests it my be piriformis syndrome which he himself had never seen before but heard of and wanted to consult his partner on. His partner with years on him agrees this is what it most likely is and my chiropractor begins stretches and pinpoints the piriformis muscle and massaged it (which was awkward as that muscle is in your butt cheek) to try and help.

After a few months of this I was about to start a rough semester which wouldn't support the time to keep up with the chiropractor visits and had to stop... Plus it wasn't working, I was still in pain, and I started thinking that this diagnosis was BS or at least his attempts to correct the issue were pointless... 

A short time later,  to start a self-care regiment and for stress management I started to go to a personal trainer 1/2 an hour a week. Since then I noticed that the pinching I felt and the pain in my tush and legs had slowly started to feel better. I no longer had to wiggle in my seat in class all the time, I no longer needed to shift my weight around to be comfortable, and I only rarely felt the shooting stabbing pain I had been feeling walking around at work. 

Then I notice that if I miss a week of training it starts up again...

Just tonight I looked up if squats help piriformis syndrome and low and behold I read a site that tells you how to rehabilitate piriformis syndrome. It said that you need to first stretch the specific muscle and do simple massage therapy (as my chiropractor had done) then follow up with strengthening the muscle..

Turns out my chiropractor was right and just did the first step to rehabilitation of piriformis syndrome, massage and stretching of the piriformis muscle, without knowing that there was more to correcting the situation. Then I accidentally fell into the second phase of rehab, the strengthening of the muscle. 

So... If you get the pinch in the tush and the shooting pains of piriformis syndrome, there is hope that I thought didn't exist. 

Yay for a happy accident :)