Unlike acute injuries to the tailbone, chronic coccyx pain is a condition that might endure for years or an entire lifetime. Tailbone symptoms are some of the longest lasting and most difficult to treat in the dorsalgia therapy sector. The coccyx is a somewhat delicate set of bones which can be injured from trauma or during childbirth. Any coccyx pain syndrome can last quite a long time compared to other types of back injury. It is not uncommon for purely structural tailbone injuries to last several months, especially when the coccyx is fractured. However, pain that continues beyond normal expectancy is not normal and often indicates a completely different causation of the symptoms.
This discussion explores chronic coccyx symptoms and provides guidance for patients who are searching for lasting relief.
Chronic Coccyx Pain Diagnosis
Pain from an injury will heal. Most often, this is simply not the reality enjoyed by coccyx pain sufferers. If the pain continues long-term, the injury is often blamed for creating scar tissue or some other physical defect. In some scenarios, the injury has merely acted as a trigger for a psychosomatic pain syndrome to begin. In others, there may be a completely different structural or disease-related reason for the symptoms to be occurring.
If there is severe pain, but no sign of coccyx injury, the pain is often blamed on sacroiliac joint dysfunction and/or piriformis syndrome. Once again, these conditions rarely cause severe pain and are 2 of the recently popularized scapegoats on which many physicians blame idiopathic back pain. Remember too that these diagnostic theories are often ridiculous when tenderness and pain are felt only in the immediate area of the coccyx.
Chronic Tailbone Pain Facts
The coccyx is a common site for spinal surgery. Repair or removal of the tailbone is a normal procedure for complaints involving ongoing coccyx pain. These surgeries show mediocre to good results for lasting pain relief, but many patients suffer new symptomatic locations nearby even after the coccyx is amputated. The surgery may act as a temporary placebo cure, since many patients simply develop back pain substitute symptoms in another location of the spine or body. Other patients continue to have perceived tailbone pain, even after the coccyx has been surgically removed! This is likely a telling indication of some psychological process causing the chronic lower region back pain.
Patients with actual structural abnormalities and serious injury to the coccyx have the best hope of finding lasting relief from surgery. In some cases, the procedure completely cures all the pain and the patient fully recovers, indicating a correct diagnosis and appropriately executed therapy. Well done!
Relieving Chronic Coccyx Pain
I know that pain in the tailbone really hurts. I have suffered with several coccyx bruises incurred from martial arts training. I also remember hurting my tailbone as a child and suffering pain for many months. Luckily, my pain completely resolved itself with no treatment.
If you are experiencing long lasting coccyx pain which has proven to be resistant to many treatments, it may be time to consider the chance that your pain may have been misdiagnosed and could actually even be the result of a psychosomatic process. In this case, a cure is easy to enact once you discover, acknowledge and accept the causative emotions behind the symptoms. Once you have accomplished this, your coccyx will no longer be a literal pain in your butt.
For patients with other structural issues responsible, I recommend evaluation by a qualified spinal neurologist. There may be some condition causing nerve pain at or near the coccyx, even if the source resides elsewhere.
