Sacroiliac Joint Pain Relief

Contents:

1. My experience with SI Sacroiliac Joint pain!
2. What is the SI Joint? Where in the body is it? Enthesitis and Sacroiliitis. 
3. How does SI Joint pain feel?
4. The SI Joint is the most common area of AS/ axSpA inflammation.
5. I’ve learned the hard way what relieves SI Joint pain and what may make SI Joint pain worse. 
6. How to vary your yoga practice according to how bad your SI pain is.
7. Free 20 minute video of yoga for SI Joint pain relief.
8. Family carers are central to sticking at Yoga for your AS/ axSpA.

Mine started in 1973 when I was 24 and lasted on and off until 2012. I had tried everything for the pain, but the only thing that worked was my yoga. I was diagnosed in 2009 and the treatment combined with yoga modified for my AS mostly prevented SI Joint flares. 

I was told in 2010 by the Specialist AS Physiotherapists at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath, England, that it is the stretching in yoga that gives the pain relief, mostly stretching in the entheses around the SI Joints. 

So I worked on modifying my yoga practice to prevent SI Joint flares. Regular safe practice of yoga modified for AS really does work for me. 

I’m now a qualified yoga teacher, with 50 years experience of living with AS, practised yoga since 1990 and been developing yoga for AS since 2010. 

It’s actually two SI Joints, where the spine joins on to the pelvis in your lower back, one on each side. They are designed for strength more than mobility. They are very narrow gaps, 1 - 4 millimetres wide, between the pelvis and the sacrum.

You cannot stretch into the Sacroiliac Joints. Strengthening and Stabilising the SI Joints is key. 

But the SI Joints are surrounded by lots of ligaments and tendons, where we can get enthesitis: inflammation and pain where ligaments and tendons insert into the bones. You can stretch these and I believe, along with many AS healthcare professionals, that this is where the pain relief comes from. 

So if you get AS inflammation in those narrow joints and that complex web of entheses, it really really hurts. I had those pains for 40 years so I reckon I am an expert by experience! 

How does SI joint pain feel?

It ranges from a dull ache to a crippling acute flare that makes you howl when you sneeze. Typically you’ll feel SI joint pain when you try to stand from seated, when you raise the knee towards the chest when trying to go upstairs or step up on to a kerb, or when you are walking. Or limping along!  

SI inflammation can make the pain refer; the pain is felt away from the SI joint itself, in the hips, groin, rarely below the knee. I had had SI joint pain for 8 years before I even learned there was such a thing as referred pain.  

So if you have got as far as searching for SI joint pain, you are already further on than I was for decades. 

With thanks to our friends at the Spondylitis Association of America, this body map that they put together, shows that SI Joint pain is the most common area of inflammation in AS. 

I’ve learned the hard way what relieves SI Joint pain and what makes SI Joint pain worse. 

Yoga is not just the poses. Yoga Yamas and Niyamas are moral codes, ways of living your best life. One of them is Ahimsa, the absence of injury. 

And if you really want to stop or relieve that SI Joint Pain, then stop injuring yourself by smoking tobacco.

I can tell you from bitter experience that this was the major cause of my SI pain. Every time I stopped smoking, the pain went away. And it came back every time I started smoking again. 

I thought I was more than a bit crazy. It was 36 years of SI Joint pain before I was educated about how bad smoking is for us. It was then that I finally managed to stop completely. 

How to vary your yoga practice according to how bad your SI pain is:

1. Times of no SI Joint pain: practice Yoga for AS regularly and safely.  

2. Times when the pain comes back are called flares.

3. Going into flare, when the pain is getting worse: ease off, back off from the intensity and regularity of your yoga practice. Try Breath-work and Relaxation. 

4. Coming out of flare: pace the recovery speed and intensity but keep giving yourself little “stretch tests” to check how your recovery is coming along.

5. Preventing SI flares: Stop smoking. Practise safe, yoga regularly at a level that is appropriate for your abilities. Focus on strengthening and stabilising the SI Joint and surrounding areas. Not moving is harmful; find the balance between doing nothing and overdoing it, causing a flare.  

Free 20 minute video of yoga for SI Joint pain relief

Family and friend carers are central to sticking at Yoga for your AS/ axSpA

Quote, with permission, from Bob who has just started his Yoga for AS practice: 

“I do my yoga on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If I forget, Sue reminds me”. 

Says it all.

If you would like to practice Yoga for AS, you can explore a Live Online Class or the Virtual Library.

Both of which you can try for free below.