My SIJD Story

It has been 3.25 years since I first encountered the beginning stages of SIJD (Sacroiliac joint dysfunction). I had developed a pain in my upper right butt close to the iliac crest. I didn't think much of it until the pain persisted past 2 weeks. That was when I started to become concerned. This was a very new thing for me, to develop pain that would not heal itself. Up until then I had known myself to be a strong healthy person and thought I would continue to be healthy forever as long I wasn't involved in any major sudden traumatic events. Little did I know the major biomechanical breakdown that was brewing in my body, called SIJD. But before I could find out about SIJD, I had to run the gambit of building up my knowledge, trying countless treatment options and eventually altering my whole lifestyle to accommodate and combat this powerful bodily dysfunction.

Before SIJD reared it's ugly head, I loved to run, weight training made me feel good about myself, water and snow skiing with family and friends, enjoyed my physically demanding career and pretty much anything that kept me physically strong. It was a big reality blow but I guess its things like SIJD that makes life so powerful because to beat this dysfunction is like climbing Mount Everest. If you don't believe me or think I'm being over dramatic then you have never faced a serious health issue before in your life, like how I used to think before chronic pain. Granted, SIJD won't kill you but it can kill your physical prowl very swiftly and make you feel much, much older then your actual age.

Let me tell you about how I think SIJD has affected my body. If you are lucky to be born with no structural abnormalities (like myself I believe) then your body should consist of muscles perfectly balanced on a bony frame that hinge smoothly off tight and flexible joints. Ones body should operate like a well oiled, highly sophisticated, biomechanical gift from God. But, like anything, it can be damaged and breakdown over time if not taken care of properly.

I think my downward spiral into SIJD began from not being taught properly how to maintain optimal body mechanics. I played hockey for 12 years throughout most my childhood and this was a good thing, which I think did my body good. But my coach's and athletic teachers never really know about proper body maintenance, therefore I never stretched properly, or took care of my core muscles and things like that. I wish the older generation knew how important this stuff was but once again, they just didn't know any better and therefore not their fault. Added to that was a horrible posture I had learnt throughout childhood. I walked with my head down, shoulders forward and rounded back, a typical posture for an insecure adolescent. I was well on my way to a classic flat back posture, not bio mechanically feasible at all! It wouldn't be long before the ligaments throughout my body would start to become taxed, especially the SIJ and spine.

Enter post-teen years. PLEASE DON'T PUT ME BEHIND A DESK! for a career path. I needed to be outside in a construction site or something similar where I'm moving around and being physically active. So for 10 years I sweat my ass off, on average for 40-50 hours a week. A big problem with these types of jobs involves repetitive movements. Literally In a single day I would perform the same movement 1000's of times. One particular job I had was in a grain elevator and every so often we would have grain spills of mass proportions and guess who would have to clean it up? The grunt of course! and his name was me. So off I went to shovel tones of grain. Head down, ass up I would go for hours, performing the same movement over and over again. Repetitive movements are what create tight muscles, overloading certain muscles. In this particular movement, such as of shoveling grain, I would lean in with my right hip and right shoulder and brace with whole left side. So I was left with a very tight right hip flexor that over time will pull the right hip forward. Voila! A right antoriorly rotated hip and long leg for my beautiful SIJ's to soak up.

 Added to the full-time job, I decided to take up weightlifting but not proper weightlifting of course. I was what you would call a weekend warrior. I was a self-taught weightlifter in my basement or spare room and learned all my knowledge through online weightlifting forums. I really should have been more careful with things like weightlifting but once again I didn't know any better. Things like the core muscles just didn't get any attention. BIG MISTAKE! Another deadly blow and a heavy contributor to SIJD. The core muscles are what stabilizes the pelvis and spine and braces the joints for the massive muscle movers to do the person's task. Every time I think back to my weightlifting days, it makes me cringe. Putting massive strain on a twisted pelvis with heavy weightlifting is sure to stretch a few ligs.

Now you might be thinking what finally gave way first in my body. What part of the kinetic chain broke first? Keeping in mind by this time I wasn't experiencing any pain, well not long lasting pain anyway. Surprisingly it wasn't my lumbar (although slowing crushing), or my SIJ (being stretched to kingdom come), but actually my elbow. I was about 27 y/o and working a stone masonry-laboring job  and about 6 months in I started experiencing sharp pains in my inner elbow. After attempting to work with it and thinking it was temporary, the pain persisted and reluctantly I was forced to eventually quit. I soon discovered I had developed sever golfer's elbow and even to this day I still have pain in the elbows but only a fraction of what it used to be.

Fast-forward 1 year, after sitting on poggie (employment insurance) and waiting for my arms to heal, I encountered my first bout of upper butt/iliac crest pain. I was performing a squatting exercise with a small amount of weight when I felt I had pulled something in my upper butt and stopped immediately. I waited and waited for a good 6 months for this pain to subside and it didn't. Now I'm starting to feel like the unluckiest guy in the world. Why was I falling apart?  Every morning, I would wake up stiff in the upper butt area and very sore and stiff to bend over. SOB! WTF! lol, I was not happy and needed help. Another dynamic part of SIJD is the mental drain. To watch ones own physical healths deteriorate at the ripe age of 29 is tough!!! Especially since I always thought I was superman and took great pride that I was in good shape.

Anyway off to the doctor’s office I went and got my first round of X-rays taken. The doctor looked at my x-rays and said, "looks perfect, nothing wrong here at all," and I was very relieved to hear that and I believed him. Little did I know at the time that GP doctors only look for certain serious problems, such as alignment of the spine, which would indicate sponylolisthesis or sever disk narrowing and bone on bone. On with my search for a diagnoses went. The chiro was the first one to tell me that I was in big trouble and the disk narrowing at L5-S1 is a huge red flag. He said I was in stage 3 out of 4 for degeneration of the lumbar and had a spine of a 40-50 year old and this was my first big reality hit, I was pretty shaken up from what he said. He also pointed out the functional scoliosis and high right hip and high left shoulder.

So he said he wanted me to come into his office 3 times a week for like 12 weeks or something stupid like that. It would have cost me $2000 for his treatments over the 3 months. After a month of SI manipulations I didn't return because after my research I quickly found out that if I did have SIJD that his treatment would cause much more harm, strongly advised by Don Tigny. Thank you Richard:) Awesome man by the way. I wouldn't say his treatments are the be all and end all (no SIJD is the same!) but I think he is a great pioneer in the SIJD field, no doubt. Basically, after countless physio's, chiro's, osteo's, naturopaths and lots of hours of researching online I have concluded I have SIJD.

Ok, now to connect the dots for myself. SIJD is the root of evil and ultimately what causes a massive breakdown in the pelvis. The pelvis is the foundation of the body (this is beginner stuff, sorry if I bore you) and grounds out all forces for the body. It's where the upper half meets the lower half and creates a ring of opposing forces to be equally distributed back out towards the body. Once I began to understand the pelvis, the more I fell in love with its design. So how did the SIJD compromise my pelvis? Multiple factors that all feed off each other and progress over a period of time. It didn’t happen over night but I'm sure the deeper SIJD claws dug in the faster the progression of degeneration.

One possible scenario of SIJD progression for myself might look like something like this. The inadequate posture I developed in my youth (flat back syndrome, see image above) and also the lack of proper education about body mechanics set the stage for a good spine pounder and SIJ lig stretcher. Developing hip rotation from manually demanding job from a tight hip flexor creates a huge stress on the SIJ ligs and over time, the SIJ loosens more and more allowing the pelvis to distort more and more. Not only can the pelvis not absorb energy properly but asymmetries develop all through the body, creating stronger and stronger muscle imbalances (oh my poor defenseless joints). The lumbar spine is contending with massive forces from loss of lordosis resulting in herniated disks and potential nerve compression. The knees, shoulders and elbows are receiving larger amounts of forces from a crippled core and lack of posture. Muscle imbalances are getting stronger and stronger each day with a game of tug of war on a bone structured frame that is not being held together tightly by numerous destabilized joints all throughout the body.

Here's a basic flow chart:

poor posture --> tight muscles --> ligament stress and joint destabilization (SIJD) --> muscle imbalance and structural asymmetries --> joint deterioration and nerve compression --> PAIN!

My current symptoms and discomfort levels: (these symptoms fluctuate a little all the time and more so over a greater period)

- Bilateral numbness on anterior lower thighs, accompanied with, occasional burning and stinging and hyper sensitivity (5/10)

- Nerve pain/sensitivity throughout legs. Travels in back of legs and down back/sides of calfs to the outer/inner ankles (3/10)

- Lots of discomfort on sitting, mostly in lumbar (5/10)

- Excessive walking causes pain and stiffness in lumbar and SIJ's (4/10)

- Left outer knee pain (3/10)

- Pain in left SIJ where iliac meets sacrum (3/10)

- Popping/shifting on left SIJ while contracting left glut muscle, not painful

- Left golfer's elbow (2/10)

- Depression, SIJD is one heck of a roller coaster.

My overall health (for a 31 year old) I would say is a 6/10. A 10/10 would mean I'm I feel great all the time, like before my symptoms arose. Will I ever get back to a 10/10, probably not. Would I be happy with a 6/10 the rest of my life, of course. I plan on staying the same for as long as possible and excited to see any gains I can make. The problems I face now are a bit of an up hill climb, slow and steady. The greatest role one can take in self-healing is to become the expert, only then will you receive maximum results because no one understands your body better then you.

Please leave any comments, good or bad but not rude, unless I know you:).