Crooked tailbone and pain

So now I know why my tailbone hurts all the time.  It curves to the right.  Before I would have random bouts of pain but lately it's been hurting really bad.  It feels like I'm sitting on a ball and it hurts to walk or when I first sit.  I have been seeing a chiropractor and have had 4 visits so far and it seems to be working but the things he does is not helping my tailbone much.  The rest of my back is feeling better though - yay!

I decided to go see my primary and see if she can do something about the pain - I will see on Monday if I can get in to see her earlier then the 29th that was first proposed.  For anyone that has had this type of pain, what did you do for it?  I know what the docs do to straighten it and right now I don't care how they do it, I just want it done.  It's gotten to the point where I don't care - just fix me!  Right now I am sitting on a donut (which only helps marginally) and I use ice packs on occasion.  Intead of doing an invasive procedure that the straightening entails, can a doc do cortisone injections or is that just putting off the inevitable?

Hi Red I've posting here for awhile but didn't know you were forum moderator so I thought I'd say hi .I do hope your issues with your tail bone can be helped or improved and that your pain decreases significantly .Good job investigating and by all means choose what you think is best , right on !! Best of Luck sincerely Mikel

Hi Red : I was in your position about thirteen years ago.My broken tailbone had healed crooked after a truck accident two years previous.Every step I took with my left leg caused my tailbone to pull forward and to the left because the ligaments had been ripped off the coccyx on that side and healed short and tight. This aggravation caused my coccyx to press into my prostate and gave me the sitting on a tennis ball feeling from the swollen prostate.Life was painful and I, like you, wanted the pain to end,whatever it took......The way they re-break your coccyx is by sticking their fingers in your rectum,grabbing the coccyx and snapping it with a sharp twist.My incompetent specialist got too rammy with his snapping and stretched my pudendal nerves too far out of the rest of my spine.The nerves never receded back and have left me with pudendal nerve entrapment (google it).I have required ever increasing doses of morphine (almost 500 mg/day now...11 years later) just so I can put weight on my legs and shuffle around the house and yard with my canes.I am never totally without pain but thankfully it is being controlled.Some of my rectal muscles ended up paralyzed as well as some other not so fun sexual problems came with the deal.I can't comment on coccyx removal nor am I trying to say that you will have the same negative results with a coccyx re-break as I have but PLEASE think long and hard about letting Dr.'s mess around with your spine.I hope the best for you Red and may God Bless.Take care......Rod

Red,
I haven't wanted to comment but I have to echo some of what Hound Dog is saying about being careful of doctors - including chiropractors - manipulating your spine. I know there are times chiropractors can be helpful, especially with the lumbar spine, but they can also do damage. They are NOT M.D.'s or D.O.'s - do not have the same level of training, even though they are allowed to use the term "doctor of chiropractic". I am not trying to say they're all bad, but just that their training is very different, they pretty much will always find a list of things wrong with your spine, and can sometimes end up costing you an arm and a leg (literally and figuratively).

I know you are desperate to find relief, as are we all, and we all walk into some things out of that desperation. I'm not saying not to go, but do some really good research on chiropractics and also on the mechanics of the spine.

The coccyx (tailbone) is actually not one bone; it's a series of several small bones which are not connected in a healthy spine. Injury to the coccyx can take a long, long time to heal no matter what kind of treatment, so part of this may end up being patience on your part. My suggestion would be to also consult a good orthopedic specialist (I know you've seen a lot of doctors before who haven't been helpful) and see what they say about whether chiropractics can help you. Or maybe a good physiatrist, who is a specialist in physical medicine (different from a psychiatrist!), as they understand all types of PT, chiropractics, etc. and could give you a good second opinion.

Do you have a teaching hospital near you where there's a good team of spine specialists who could maybe give you a second opinion?

Like Hound Dog said, the wrong kind of treatment can be dangerous here. There are a lot of nerves in and around the tailbone, and also stretched ligaments may or may not heal. They're not the same as muscle or tendon; ligaments are the next strongest thing to bone in our body. When they are stretched such as from a fall or injury they may have to be tightened surgically, or maybe over time via exercise and other treatments.

Don't know if any of this helps, but I'm just a little concerned about you putting all your eggs in the basket of this chiro. out of desperation - yet I KNOW the feeling well and am not judging you!

PaLady

Red 34......I don't know if this applies in your case but many women have developed PNE (pudendal nerve entrapment) when the coccyx was stretched too far back during childbirth.I hope you can find some relief soon.Take care..........Rod

Red,
I hope you get some relief soon, don't quit looking for help. When I was 12 years old, I was sitting on a basketball, on asphalt. Some boy came running up to me and before I could react, he kicked the basketball out from under me. I literally could not walk for a week and my Mother, for some stange reason, didn't take me to the doctor. When I was 25, my back really began hurting terribly. It had hurt since the incident, but it got really bad. I went to my dr who took an ex-ray and told me I had in fact, broken my tail bone all those years before. I went on with my life doing the things I'd done since I was 12. I have always lifted myself if I'm on my back by leaning (ususally) to the left, I have to do the same in the bath. I can't do sit ups or anything that puts any pressure on my tail bone. I'm 51 now and it doesn't hurt all the time anymore, but it does cause discomfort in many ways. Take care and see a dr about the options you have. I didn't know I had options until I was 45 years old!
Catz4

Just an update, I got in to see the doc. It isn't my tailbone afterall but my Sacroiilitis acting up - it just happens to be acting up in a different area then before.

I thought it a bit funny but my doc suggested I see one of their residents who does manipulation since I've had cortisone injections in my SI before but they didn't work.

Yeah, I remember you talking about your SI issues. Mine aren't as bad as yours and by just my own experience my heart goes out to you for having to deal with a more serious problem with your SI's then me. You're a strong lady for sure. That belt sounds interesting and when I see the resident I may see what she says about that. I found out thru the chiro that my hips are misaligned and my SI joints are bit deformed. He mentioned that I may have been born like that and that really makes sense because I have had lower back pain all my life starting in my early teens. But it wasn't until I was in a car accident 14 years ago that the lower back pain intensified as well as my neck issues - I had whiplash.