Sacroiliac Joint Syndrome

Staying in the Game

"You wrote about me." This is what my new patient said as I introduced myself to her.

She had read my previous column about lower back and leg pain caused by the sacroiliac joint. She was one of many readers that emailed me for more information. She also wanted an appointment for an evaluation.

She has been an athlete all her life. She also has coached women's basketball at the college and high school levels. Now all she wants to do is play golf without pain while summering in Maine.

She tells me her pain is in the right side of her back and goes into her buttocks. She has had the pain for several months. It was not going away.

I asked if there was any weakness in her leg. She said her foot feels weak at times, especially when she gets tired.

My examination found muscle spasm in the lower back and buttocks. She can stand on her heals and toes. The strength of her large toe is weak. Stretching the sciatic nerve is negative.

Overall she is a very fit and healthy woman.

I diagnosed her with a possible herniated disc in her lumbar spine. This was indicated by the weakness in her leg and was complicated by her sacroiliac and pelvic misalignment.

Not all herniated discs need surgery. Studies indicate only about three percent of patients with herniated discs require surgery. Surgery is warranted for severe and unrelenting pain or when neurological signs like motor weakness progress.

Portland is fortunate to have an excellent neurosurgical group. Our practices work well together and we often refer our patients to the most appropriate care.

I agreed to treat her. I told her we would constantly monitor her for any negative changes in her neurological signs. If this happened she would be referred for an MRI and neurosurgical consultation.

We began using chiropractic manipulation. The strength has returned to his toes and the pain subsided so that she can play golf in comfort.

She was delighted. After three visits, she said "this is the best I've felt in years."

Another patient contacted our office for an appointment after reading my last column. It is the formation of the Beach Beacon 10K. She had pain in his left hand, lower back and buttocks.

As athletes to increase the intensity of their workouts which puts more pressure on their structure. If they are out of balance, they are prone to injury.

I found that her pelvis was not level. She had a weakness of the hip flexor and gluteus maximus. She had one very tender spot on the outside of her buttocks. This is the attachment of the piriformis muscle.

How to Treat SI Joint Dysfunction with Chiropractic Care.

Sacroiliac Joint or SI Joint

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction or SI Joint Pain is one of the most undiagnosed problems in all of medicine. Most conventional medical doctors are not trained to look for this. The good news is in our office we get excellent results by using a specific procedure that is part of a technique called: Sacro-Occipital -Technique, or SOT. This is also known as SI joint syndrome and SI joint sprain. This is a common occurrence in our office and some of the causes of it are trauma, falls, and repetitive stress and also car accidents.

The main function of the sacroiliac joints is to transmit forces between the upper body and the lower limbs. Women tend to be affected more often tan men, since they tend to have more flexibility of their ligaments. Until recently the main anatomical textbook in medicine did NOT recognize that these joints even moved! Grey’s Anatomy, since some years now, state that the sacroiliac joints DO move, which has been a great help in making medical doctors accept that sacroiliac joints can benefit from chiropractic care and treatments.

The sacroiliac joint or SI joint lies next to the bottom of the spine-below the lumbar spine and above the tailbone (coccyx). It connects the sacrum (the triangular bone at the bottom of the spine) with the pelvis (iliac crest).  In Latin,  the word sacrum means-”the sacred bone”, which shows you how important this is. Inside the joints is a system of ridges and grooves.  The sacral side has a concave groove and the iliac side has a convex groove.  Looking from behind onto someone’s back, you can see two dimples on either side just below the waist. This is where the SI joints are located. When the sacroiliac joint slips out of place (subluxation) , this can be very painful in the lower back and it can even cause leg pain/sciatica. This can easily  be corrected by using SOT blocks which specifically moves the joint back to its normal position and is thus fixed or corrected. This is a painless procedure and  the good news is that the bodies own weight makes the correction,  as the patient lies comfortably in a supine position on the SOT blocks. So by using SOT diagnosis and procedures  SI Joint Dysfunction can be easily found in our office, and easily fixed and corrected in our office.

Sacroiliac joint syndrome, a clinical audit of diagnostic procedures at the AECC and a private chiropractic clinic

Minimally Invasive Musculoskeletal Pain Medicine

The chiropractic theories, a textbook of scientific research

Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques: The lower body

The malalignment syndrome, implications for medicine and sport