I had a pretty interesting experience yesterday that I thought I’d share with you all– the good and the bad. I saw a physiatrist at Mass General Hospital who was actually familiar with treating the SIJ. (A physiatrist is a type of doctor that treats physical dysfunction, similar to an orthopedist or a pain specialist. People always think I’m saying “psychiatrist,” but I’m not). I … Continue reading What I learned from seeing my third physiatrist
It’s a great way to build muscular strength without negatively impacting your SI joints. Basically, if you have an SI joint injury, you have likely sprained the ligaments that are supposed to hold the joint in place. The only way around this is to build up enough muscle strength around the joint that your muscles are able to hold things in place more. In … Continue reading What’s so awesome about aquatic therapy?
When my SI joints were at their worst, they were extremely sensitive to the kind of surface I was resting on. Of course, in the midst of my problem, the mattress I’d loved for about 10 years finally wore out. And it wore out bad. Now that I’m doing better, it’s almost hard to remember how sensitive I was. At the time, all I knew was … Continue reading The mattress that helped my SI joint issues
Hey everyone, I was just working on revamping the “My Story” page for this blog, and I ended up reflecting on one aspect of this saga which I really haven’t talked about as much: How totally and completely crazy I felt when I was first trying to get help for this problem. The first time one of my SI joints locked up, in 2011, it was a … Continue reading So, it turns out I wasn’t crazy…
A reader asked me if I’d ever had prolotherapy yesterday, and since I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while, now seems like the right time to put this out there! What is prolotherapy? Prolotherapy is a relatively new form of treatment, meant to speed the healing of sprained ligaments. It involves an injection of special substances into the specific area you want … Continue reading What is Prolotherapy? (and why I didn’t end up having it).
Now that my SI joints themselves are actually staying stable (thank God!) I can begin to identify other factors that may have been contributing to my pain, and causing my sense of being off-kilter, all along. What I’m referring to specifically in this post is tightness in the muscles of the lower back. When these muscles are tight they can pull on the spine … Continue reading Tight muscles can mimic SI joint dysfunction
Hey everyone, These are some common terms relating to the SI joint which, unfortunately, can be very confusing to a lot of people. Let’s clear them up! The words hypermobile and hypomobile can be used in a few different ways to describe the SI joint, or any joint in the body. Let’s start by talking about what these words actually mean. Hypomobility refers to a … Continue reading SI Joint Concepts: Hypomobility and Hypermobility
My Sacroiliac Joint Saga 