My Injury

So what happened to me… well some back pain can be attributed to an isolated incident such as a car accident.  Mine was more of a series of events I believe.

In the 1997-1998 time period, I was in my mid-20′s, good health, very athletic and working out 5 days a week.  Thats where it starts…  I had began doing a lot of heavy squatting in the gym, twice my bodyweight for 20 reps, plus deadlifts, etc.  During some of those workouts, I had felt some very acute, knife like pains in the sacrum area, particularly the sacroiliac and sacrotuberous ligaments.  Of course, I had no idea what those were at the time.

These pains only happened a couple of times and then towards the end of ’98 I had moved to Manhattan and the intensity of the workouts went way down due to work schedules but was still 5days a week.  I think these workouts were the start of the damage.  I had no persistent pain at this point.

Sometime after the move to Manhattan, I joined a softball team and I was organzing it as well.  One of the thankless tasks involved in doing this was being responsible for the bases.  Yes, in NYC you have to bring your own bases to the field.  Man I don’t miss living there at all.

Anyway, since at that time I was walking to work, days I had a softball game I had to lug the bases along.  These were in a duffel bag and along with some balls and other equipment, I would guess that duffel weighed about 40-55lbs.  Home plate alone was probably 10lbs alone. 

What I suspect was happening, as I walked numerous city blocks, with a heavy duffel bag over ONE shoulder, this added intense pressure to one side of my hip as I walked.  This would compound and jam into the sacrum, further stressing ligaments that I believe I initially injured during squatting.

This hypothesis can not be confirmed and that is somewhat frustrating but it’s my best thought on what happened.

I was now on my way to 2 years of intense back pain, with major flare ups in 2003 and 2009, and numerous minor pains along the way.  I’ll discuss the actual pain, location, and affects on my daily life in the next post.

Introduction – Does your lower back hurt but no one can tell you why?

Hello, i’m starting this blog because i’ve gone through enough pain with my back, searched enough dead-ends, gotten no answers from dr’s, pt’s, chiros, and I wanted to share what i’ve found.

If you have pain, sometimes extreme pain, in your lower back, generally around what is called your sacrum, the pyramid shaped bone at the base of your spine, keep reading. 

Does the pain tend to be more on one side of the sacrum than the other?  Does it hurt to sit, stand, roll-over in bed, put your socks on… do you hear a clicking sound in the area? Do you feel like you can’t walk?  Favor one side?  Does the pain radiate across the glutes?  Down your thigh? 

Been to the chiropractor with no results or actually an increase in pain?  Nothing wrong on your x-rays, mri’s?  Physical therapy does nothing for you?  Do dr’s suggest a cortisone shot, nerve desentization, ibuprofen?  Are you beyond frustrated and considering back surgery  may be in your future?

I answered yes to all of the above back in 1998, and had bouts of off and on since.  That plus what i’ve learned in the past 11+ years is  what this blog is about.

You’ll be happy to know that i’ve spent 99% of the time pain free after my first severe episode of pain back then.  This was not without extensive suffering for 2years in the beginning, a ton of research, and finding the right doctors and procedures that work and more importantly DON’T work!  I’ll be talking about what has worked for me, exercises, products, controversial procedures, and what led me to ultimately understand what was going on with my back.

Since 98/99, i’ve had a couple of bad episodes but they were temporary.  My most recent pain episode was early Oct 2009, thats what prompted this blog.  These episodes, although temporary, are nonetheless worrisome because you don’t know if it’s going to heal up.  This blog is all about what are the right things to do and how to identify if you suffer from SI-Joint dysfunction.