I personally find that it is occasionally convenient and natural to start sentences with a mathematical symbol, but I have had coauthors who do not like it, and in this case I typically modify the sentence (into what I sometimes feel is more awkward).
Tara has mentioned a nice trick for amending sentences starting with a symbol and this is typically the approach I have taken. Another approach that I find sometimes works is to consider merging the sentences (perhaps with a little restructuring) so that the symbol follows a comma or a conjunction such as `and'.