Sacroiliac therapy comes in a variety of forms with many different goals in mind, depending on the causative condition enacting pain and the expectations of the patient. Therapy can be used to help patients better cope with with pain or to resolve the underlying causative process for pain. This is the classic symptomatic versus curative treatment scenario. Furthermore, different treatments may be used for sacroiliitis than for symptoms caused by sacroiliac joint dysfunction.
A combined care approach to SI joint therapy often consists of various conservative medical and complementary treatments designed to improve joint function and relieve painful symptoms. Sacroiliac pain remains a controversial diagnosis, since it is very difficult to distinguish symptoms originating in the SI joint from many other common lower back and buttock pain conditions.
This essay provides guidance on choosing effective treatment for SI joint pain problems.
Sacroiliac Joint Therapy Modalities
There are many common treatment options for SI joint pain. Many choices involve massage or manipulation of the joint manually or though exercise therapy. The majority of treatments are conservative in nature and surgery is not a common solution unless the pain is chronic and severe. Surgical correction of SI joint conditions does not show very good results for pain relief and the procedures are usually reserved for desperate cases.
Since traditional care has been ineffective at relieving many cases of diagnosed SI joint pain, more alternative methods of treatment have focused on the SI joint, mostly for financial gain of the care providers. Detailed information on the full range of SI therapy modalities can be found on our back pain treatments page.
Results of SIJ Therapy
Therapy for SI joint issues should help to resolve the pain in a matter of weeks in most cases. SI pain syndromes which resist treatment might very well be misdiagnosed conditions. This is a common phenomenon which explains why so many patients do not achieve cures despite active and even aggressive professional care.
Just like many other spinal issues can be misrepresented as being symptomatic when they are really innocent, the SI joint can also take the blame when degeneration is present, but falls within the range of normal and expected for a person of a given age and condition. In essence, the sacroiliac can be yet another of the seemingly endless variety of scapegoats on which pain is blamed unfairly.
If treatment is not successful within 2 months, it may be wise to consider these facts carefully, since changing to a new therapy is unlikely to provide improved results. Reevaluating the diagnostic theory is probably a better course of action.
Sacroiliac Therapy Suggestions
The SI joint pain diagnosis is a relatively new and growing treatment specialty in the back pain industry. Doctors love this diagnosis, since it is a great explanation for lower back pain in patients without other obvious spinal abnormalities or causative conditions.
It is very difficult to prove that pain is actually due to SI joint dysfunction and almost impossible to disprove. This makes SI dysfunction yet another wonderful back pain scapegoat condition. Unfortunately, most diagnosed patients have no idea that the SI joint is rarely problematic and fall into long lasting therapy programs which do nothing to resolve their suffering. If you are in a treatment program for an extended time without enjoying a lasting cure, it may be time to reconsider your options.
Changing doctors or treatments will not correct a mistaken diagnosis unless you truly wipe the slate clean and forget all that you have been told up until this point. This drastic action is just what saves so many patients with a wide range of previously misdiagnosed health issues. Holding on to an incorrect diagnosis while trying treatment after treatment is the worst thing one can do.
Remember the law of therapy escalation in medicine. If you keep at it, you are almost certain to end up in surgery for a condition which may not have ever caused one bit of pain, while the true villain remains undiscovered in your anatomy.
