Interesting Psoas article

[DMcU]

Hi All,

I have gone to 3 PT's (one of which specialises in pelvic floor issues), I gave the book A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS to the other two. One of the PT's, however, was convinced I have a problem with Psoas muscle. I found this hard to believe until he explained to me exactly what this would cause symptoms wise.

He checked out the muscle and I had 5 TrPt's in it on one side.

Now I had a fall through a farm shed roof so my pelvis was twisted and pushed up due to landing on my right foot outstretched, so the left side psoas tightened.

Here's an excerpt from a site where a specialist helps someone with their psoas problem. I thought it was interesting and I might just give this muscle more treatment:

The tight iliopsoas can cause all the intestinal problems you are mentioning because the muscle pulls so hard on the lumbar vertebrae that it impinges the nerves that come through the lumbar region. These nerves all go to the organs, including the intestines and the bladder.

Also, as the iliopsoas gets tight it causes your pelvis to rotate forward and down, which then causes your quadriceps (front of your thigh) to have to shorten or they are too long to straighten out your leg from the bent position. As the quads shorten they put a great deal of pressure on your knee. It also is the reason for the hip pain, and can even make the front of your thigh become numb.

The pelvis rotation also causes your hamstrings (back of your thigh) to overstretch because as the pelvis goes down in the front it goes up in the back. This will also cause the bone to press into your sciatic nerve and will cause pain/numbness/tingling to go all the way down to your feet, and is the likely cause of your calf and foot pain.

The tension on the lumbar vertebrae will also cause your thoracic vertebrae to move and cause a list of other conditions.

Link: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Repetitive-S ... Muscle.htm

This does make sense in my case, and because it's hard to get at psoas due to having to get behind the intestines, I haven't treated it myself.

It's worth looking into anyway.

[calguy]

I'm having issues with psoas and sciatic nerve pain and my pt thinks its because my pelvis gets misaligned for no apparent reason. I just think muscles in whole pelvic area are messed up. My pelvis just doesn't sit right . . .could be from years of carrying myself wrong and posture. Its easy to work psoas just use tennis ball trick, or have pt or message therapist work on it. It does help sciatic pain for me when it flares up to work psoas. One strange thing is it is only left side?

[skypro]

My psoas and iliacus are trouble areas for me, according to my PT. I haven't had much success (other than stretching) with self treatment. The trigger points have improved some and my condition too (at times), so maybe there is a correlation.

[DMcU]

Hi,

Could you explain how the tennis ball trick works?

Mine too is more problematic on the left side, I had a bad fall through a roof and left my pelvis misaligned for a long time during which this condition developed. The fact it is more problematic on one side would show tension compensating for looseness/weakness in other muscles.

[lugnut]

My PT found that psoas muscles issues were behind a lot of my pain and discomfort. Working on the tps there definitely improved my quality of life. My experience has been that the various muscles in the pelvic region have become constricted, pulling on others and thus creating further problems. I'm not sure that this "domino effect" takes the same form/course for everyone but for me, working on the psoas and adductor tps has been critical for me.