Patient Education
Sacroiliac Joint Pain and Physical Therapy
I have a kind of low back pain that makes it hard to bend over. My doctor says this is a problem of the sacroiliac joint. She wants me to have physiotherapy. Will physiotherapy take the pain away?
The outlook is good. A recent study showed that physiotherapy really makes a difference for people with sacroiliac joint dysfunction, or pain in the low back where the spine and pelvis meet.
None of the patients studied had more pain after physiotherapy. In fact, 95 percent of them rated their results as good or excellent two years later. Only 5 percent said their results were fair or poor. The patients who still had a lot of pain after physiotherapy had chronic pain before treatment, meaning they had been in pain for at least 50 days. However, many patients who had chronic pain still saw some improvement.
If you decide to have physiotherapy, you'll want to find a therapist who has experience treating the sacroiliac joint. He or she will work with you to create movement in the joint and strengthen the muscles around it. You'll also learn bending and lifting techniques and find out which activities to avoid. Physiotherapy may be just the key for helping you move more comfortably.