SI joint and piriformis

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ESPplayer7

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Hey guys about 4 months ago i fell about 10 ft all onto my right leg and heard a big crack. The ortho had an mri of the back and hip with nothing abnormal. I have been in PT and chiro care and my problem is my SI joint is raised and jammed and it is causing lots of strain on my piriformis which is causing sciatica. What can be done about this? My PT and chiro cant seem to align me and my left leg is a little longer than the right. I do not get much pain in the SI region but the piriformis and leg pain is excruciating. Sitting is terrible and the most relief I get is laying on my side with a pillow in between my legs but even that still hurts. When i get up from laying down or sitting i hear a little pop too but like i said the pain is pretty much all in the butt
 
Yes it is quite debilitating. Did the therapy get you back to your old self? Or is this pretty much "live the best you can with it" type of injury? Do you have piriformis with it? Every consider surgery?
 
I have the same problem, it's a tough nut to crack. Chiro's, PT, Osteo's really dont know what to do with this as the ligs are unable to stabalize the joint again.

I would reccomend strengthening your hip flexors as much as possible, and your core as well. Go to a PT that has ultrasound and can show you exactly how to activate your core.
 
I have improved, however, I am not anywhere near my former self. The pain is manageable. Sorry to be such a downer here. However, I had a clear SI joint injury and had pain coming directly from the joint. I had 3 RFA's (nerve ablations) to just flat out kill excruciating pain from the right joint. But, this procedure does not fix the muscles. I also had steroid injections into the piriformis and the glute, with only short-termed relief from these (but others can get long-term relief). I have found rehabilitative therapy to result in slow but steady improvement in my condition. I am talking 2 years of PT and now my PT wants me to begin pilates and "make this a way of life...not a six-week thing". I do see a pain-management specialist and take Lyrica and Nucynta and I have some valium for spasms. I hope your journey is much shorter than mine has been. Oh, and I am also a type I diabetic, which my dr says messes up healing.
 
Have you asked your doc about an injection into the SI joint? I have SI joint problems and my PM doc injected Prolotherapy in to my R SI joint(the one that hurts). It's basically just sugar water. Do a search on it. Anyways, much to my surprise, it worked!!....janiee08
 
my main source of pain is in the buttock region from piriformis......The joint is out of place but doesnt really hurt
 
Must be something in the air. I'm having trouble with my SI joint and piriformis as well. I had a total knee replacement in June and when I had finished my pt for the knee surgery realized I was having terrible low back pain. I'd had this pain years ago and pt had helped, but I was concerned that it was my hip. We think the CPM machine probably aggravated the SI and piriformish. My ortho surgeon took an x-ray and said my hip was fine, but he did see DDD in my low spine. Suggested PT. I've now completed another 4 weeks and the pain is just about the same. My pt had me doing flexion stretches, which didn't help then changed me to extension stretches and now has me in the pool. I finish this round of pt next Monday and see the ortho-surgeon on Wednesday. He had said at my last visit that if there was no improvement he'd be sending me for an MRI. On top of this I developed Epstein Barr while in rehab for my knee which has left me with extreme fatigue. I also am having trouble with anemia and neutropenia and will be seeing a hematologist later this month.
Hope you do better in the coming days and weeks.
 
Just read up on this on Wikepedia -piriformis syndrome- which redirected me also to a website at emedicine.meRABcape.com on piriformis syndrome: treatment and medication. Maybe you should read both of these. It may help.
 
As a long-time sufferer of SI joint pain, I have a couple of suggestions. The first is seeking out physical therapy w/a really good manual PT. This would not be a 23-year-old physical therapy assistant. Referrals from major medical centers and spine centers can be helpful here. Not to put down your physical therapist. It's just that I had to go through 2 or 3 of them before I got a referral to a top notch practitioner. What a huge difference it made. A really good PT can work with you both in the PT center and provide you with a home exercise program to try and correct the muscles which are stretched out of position or in a state of spasm in order to compensate for the SI injury. You can even google "piraformis muscle stretches" and come up with a lot of exercises and begin right now. The best time to do these is right after a warm shower. You can corabine this with some medication such as a muscle relaxant which will further aid muscles that don't want to cooperate. A visit to your general physician should be all you need for this. Examples of muscle relaxants include Valium and Baclofen. If you are desperate for immediate relief, a pain-management doctor can place a steroid injection into the affected muscle(s). This is not the same as an SI joint injection. This may only work for 30 days or so or, for some people, it brings about longer-term relief while you are rehabilitating yourself. Keep in mind, however, that the muscles will keep getting pulled out of position to compensate for an SI joint injury as long as that underlying problem is not well-managed. I never found any chiropractor or any of this business about "alignment" of the joint to be helpful. I wish you the best. Please post if you have follow-up questions and I will try and help. Lisa.
 
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