Inflamed sacrum pain for 5 months

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Sfblues7

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Jenny, i made the next available appointment, its june 20th. Anyways, i want to make sure this doctor fixes my problem. Is their anything i should tell him i want done such as a specific test or specific medication i should be looking to get. I just want to make sure i go into this appointment with everything i need to ask/tell this doctor so i can just be healed again. My lower back hasnt felt normal since deceraber, and i just want to get back to running and playing sports. Even just working at my job is stressful/painful. Its just so depressing. Sorry for the sob story, but i just need as much advice and help i can get. Thanks alot if you can help me out here.
 
You should probably stop the lifting until you get this straightened out. You don't need to add any more injury to the area until you find out what you are dealing with.
 
In short: Basically it gives me the most trouble at work when im bending over and using my back a little. It starts feeling really inflamed at the middle of my sacrum and if i bend back (arch my back) i can really feel it hurt. It feels like if i stepped in a hole not seeing it coming it would really hurt my back. Its hard to walk standing with perfect posture because my back will hurt if i start to arch it a little. When i ice it i releaves my back alot. Full story in detail below if you can help me out! please and thank you.


FULL STORY:
Back in deceraber I was lifting weights doing standing DB press(should have been sitting) and i was going for my last rep and i arched my back a little bit to get the last rep out and after i was done i didnt really have a shooting pain, it was more like wow that might make me really sore tomorrow. Which it did, it felt like i strained some muscles in my lower back. Then i thought my back would loosen up by taking a 20 min jog the next day. Felt fine after right after, just started getting really sore at the end of the day. But the next morning, my back felt really stiff and sore, i layed in bed like all day and called off work. So i rested for a week, and took off a week from work. Week went by still had pain.......

WHAT I HAVE DONE SO FAR:

I went to my hospitals back doctor at the end of january and concluded that i had sacroiliac joint inflammation(which i read up on and most of those symptoms are correct) so he sent me through 1 month of physical therapy. I was still working and going to the gym after physical therapy visits because it never hurt bad enough where i had to stop. Usually after physical therapy or the gym my back feels fine or ok in general, just maybe a little fatigued. Anyways PT didnt really cure it or make it any different. So i stopped lifting for a few weeks but i still worked at my job (always walking or on my feet). Went back to doctor in march and he gave me pills of anti-inflammatory steroiRAB(methylpredinsine) and then scheduled me to have an MRI. 5 days later my back wasnt giving me much trouble and i went into my MRI feeling ok (because the steroiRAB were helping). Few days later i saw the doctor and told him that the medicine helped and my back was feeling ok PLUS the MRI came out ok, but the only thing is that they showed me a few pictures all of my spine but i dont recall them mentioning about my sacrum. Said my spine and disks were good. I asked if the pain will come back and he said it can and if i get pain again he will give me more of that medicine. I was like ok, whatever cause i was happy that the medicine was helping me at that time. Then a few days later it felt like the medicine wore off and i was back in the same position. I dont want more of that medicince because its not going to cure it. I feel like i have no other option and my hospital has no other spine doctor so i cant get a second opinion. Now i
 
Hi. I would like to suggest that you see a rheumatologist. They are arthritis specialists and the medical side of orthopedics.

Reason? There are several forms of arthritis that feature inflamed sacro-iliac joints(that pain in your sacrum is in the sacro-iliac joints on either side of the spine). They are called spondyloarthopathies. If there is a possibility that you are developing one of these disorders, the sooner you are treated, the better off you will be in the long run. If not, they can still see that you get all the treatment that you need including PT, meRAB and whatever.

But I would want to rule out the possibility that you may be in the earliest stages of one of these disorders that start in those exact joints and can move up your spine from there. It may not show up in an MRI this early but you would need to be tested. There is even a genetic factor they can test for that will tell you if you are predisposed to get one of these disorders. And if you do, there are a bunch of new meRAB to treat them.

So please consider seeing a rheumatologist.

good luck.........Jenny
 
There is the possibility of having an Steroid Injection into the SI joint (which helped me) and then a I also had a SI RFA (radio frequency ablation). There are surgeries for SI but they are not easy to undergo and the newest one has a very very long recovery (including non-weight bearing for a long time).

You may not need a rheumatologist. If an Orthopedic Spine Surgeon or Neurosurgeon has said the MRI looks good, then you can get some treatment from a good Pain Management doctor. I would encourage you to get a copy of the MRI narrative report. Have it so you can read it and keep it. This helps if in the future you have problems again and they want to compare new findings to old findings. If you find you have more systemic pain (pain and inflammation in other joints as well) then a rheumatologist can be helpful to determine what type of arthritis (if it's that) you may have.
 
Thank you for your input, i will have to look into seeing one. What kind of medications would cure this? I figured the only thing i had left to do was surgery but im only 20 years old and i dont want to risk any surgery. I already took oral sterioRAB that helped bring the inflammation down, but after a week it was back like it wore off. What kind of medicines or how exactly would they cure this?
 
This is not the type of thing you'd need surgery for. The sacro-illiac joints are 2 vertical joints in the pelvis that are on either side of the lowest part of the spine...the sacral area or sacrum. They give the pelvis flexibility. Once inflamed, the hurt like a son of a gun as almost any movement you make affects them. In women, they are the joints that spread in order for a woman to give birth.

The point of treatment is to slow down or try to stop the inflammation. Most of these arthritic disorders involving the sacrum are not curable but are very manageable with anti-inflammatories like NSAIRAB(non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)like ibuprofen or the prescription strength versions, steroiRAB, the strong anti-inflammatories like methotrexate or even biologic drugs like Enbrel. It depenRAB on what you have and how much it progresses.

The whole idea is to stop the inflammation as it can cause the joints to fuse on their own and not move at all giving you chronic pain. You can't operate on them as you can't remove them. They are part of the pelvis and not independent joints.

So you need to see someone and see if that is what is going on. Take it one step at a time and perhaps it won't be one of these disorders and just plain old wear and tear problems and some good treatment with drugs for osteoarthritis will shut it down. But since they can be serious disorders, you need to rule them out first.

good luck.................Jenny
 
But after my mri, they said i could go back to playing sports and all that. At the time i was on the oral steriod so my pain was not there. So i asked if the pain could come back and my doctor said it could come back (which it did like a week later) and he said i can come back for another dose of that prescription. But he warned me that i can only take that dose twice in a year because it can harm my body. So i said forget it, i dont want another dose of it, if it only takes my pain away for 1 week. So i didnt know what to do, hes the only back/spine doctor at my hospital. So i just want to see this reumatologist and see if he can at least direct me where to go from here.
 
Went to see the rheumatologist today. He gave me a prescription of Naproxen 500mg. 2 tablets a day. He also took a blood sample and he will contact me if anything comes up. I believe if nothing comes up then i dont have arthritis? He also said if the naproxen doesnt help it, then its probobly not inflamed, and told me to see my back doctor....again.
 
I have the same pain from deadlifting. I'm curious to know if you found anything to treat it.
 
I took some anti inflammatory pills that helped but I couldn't keep taking them cause they are hard on the kidney. Basically I just stopped working out 6 months ago and it's not bothering too much. I'm about to get back into lifting again so I'm hoping it won't bother me too much.
 
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