Piriformis syndrome

For a lay person:

Piriformis syndrome is buttock pain, sometimes spreading down the leg, thought to be caused by the piriformis muscle irritating the sciatic nerve.

For a trained medical person:

A contested diagnosis of exclusion for deep gluteal pain with sciatic-type symptoms once lumbar radiculopathy is excluded. Management: stretching, physiotherapy, and injection in selected cases.

In Chinese medicine:

Flaws and Sionneau's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Qi and Blood Stagnation; Liver depression qi stagnation with blood deficiency; Liver-kidney yin deficiency with blood stasis; Wind-Cold-Damp Bi. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.