3 Types of Lower Back Pain – Part 2: Sacroiliac (SI Joint) Pain

Hey Folks, Blair Schachterle from Nose Creek Physiotherapy. Today's topic is SI joint lower back pain. I'm just going to describe an SI joint pain. Typically, we do see SI joint pain in a lot of different age groups. Most commonly, we're going see this during and after pregnancy. It's probably more common in female than males. You don't have any leg pain when you have a true SI joint injury. What's happened is the pelvis is just rotated forward on one side and there is a stuck joint in the back of the pelvis. Typically, the pain will be very localized to that dimple on the inside top part of your cheek. You can almost put your finger on it. When patients come in they'll often say it just hurts right here and they'll localize it, and that's a good description of it. And often it's aggravated by sitting, standing, bending, like everything hurts. It's quite a disabling sort of injury.

One thing that you can do at home that's going to help you is to try to de-rotate your pelvis and stretch. For example, my right side has shifted forward in the pelvis. The SI joint stands for sacroiliac joint, which is the upside down triangular bone called the “sacrum” which is at the base of your spine and then the big innominate bones that form your pelvis, or the bowl of your pelvis. We're going to lie down on a bed, and we're going to pull our affected leg of the sore side up towards our chest, and this will cause the innominate to backwards rotate. The opposite leg we're going to hang over the edge of the bed, and we're just going to slowly pull the right leg up towards the chest further and further within your pain free range and you can even have your spouse or your friend gently push down on the left knee on the opposite side to create a little bit more of a stretch. You can do a hold relax stretch, where you pull your left knee up into their hand for 10 seconds, they relax and your spouse or friend over presses for 10 seconds, and do that three or four times. You should do it, three times a day. These SI joint dysfunctions, don't get better on their own, but this is something that you can try at home that may give you a little bit of pain relief. Typically, we have to do some Manual Therapy on you, to get your pelvis back to a neutral position and then offer you some core exercises to increase the strength of your lower back, your hips and pelvic area.

And then once we get that strong and fit, typically, there is a reduced chance of you having this happen to you again. I hope that helps. My name is Blair Schachterle from Nose Creek Physiotherapy, where we get you moving faster and feeling better. And again folks, if this describes any of your friends, family members or coworkers, please share this video with them so we can help them out as well. Leave us a comment below. All right, take care, talk soon. Bye-bye.

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