When you are sent for an X-ray or MRI, the clinician is looking for fractures in bones or tears in muscles, tendons or ligaments. If your tests come back negative, that’s good news Right?? Not when your back is still killing you and no one can figure out Why….
The bones that form your pelvis also play a factor in back pain. At the end of your spine and just before your tailbone, is a broad, almost triangular shaped bone called the sacrum. The pelvis connects to this bone to form the SacroIliac Joint. Small shifts and rotations in the alignment of the bones that form this joint can cause sharp pain in the back and buttocks, and can even refer pain down the leg – people often describe it as sciatica. These minor shifts are so small that it is hard to catch by diagnostic testing and, honestly, it is very much overlooked by most medical professionals
A pelvic shift or rotation may cause one leg to appear or feel shorter and cause limping, which will increase the way the you compensate your body movements, thereby causing more pain in the long run. Something as silly as miscalculating a step while running down the stairs or jarring your leg stepping off a curb can cause such a shift, and cause your muscles to tighten up and hold this new position. This throws your alignment off, and your muscles do not activate as well in an altered position, causing them to feel weaker. Proper assessment and treatment by a Physical Therapist certified to treat the sacroiliac region is necessary in these cases.
