Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Pain Treatment in Palm Coast, FL

Pain that sits low, off to one side, and flares every time you stand up is often blamed on a disc that isn’t the problem. The sacroiliac joints — where your spine meets your pelvis — are a frequently overlooked source of low back and buttock pain, and one that responds well to being correctly identified.

What SI joint pain feels like

The location is the most useful clue: a deep ache in one buttock or just to the side of the low back, sometimes wrapping toward the groin. Patients most often report:

• Pain concentrated on one side, at or below the belt line
• A sharp catch when rising from a chair or getting out of the car
• Trouble with stairs, and with standing on one leg to put on pants
• Pain rolling over in bed, or lying on the affected side
• Referred ache into the back of the thigh that usually stops above the knee

Because the pain refers into the buttock and thigh, it gets labeled sciatica by patients and sometimes by clinicians. The distinction isn’t academic — the treatments for an irritated nerve root and an irritated pelvic joint are not the same.

What’s actually happening in your pelvis

Your sacroiliac joints join the sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of your spine, to the ilium on each side of your pelvis. They’re built for stability rather than motion: thick, strong ligaments hold them together, and they move only slightly. Their job is to transfer the load of your upper body down into your legs.

That load has to go somewhere. When the joint’s cartilage wears, when its ligaments are stretched or lax, or when mechanics change — after pregnancy, an injury, a leg length difference, or a spinal fusion that shifts stress downward — the joint and its surrounding ligaments can become inflamed and painful.

How we find the source

Dr. Manuel López, a board-certified pain management and rehabilitation physician, relies heavily on the physical exam here, because imaging so often looks normal. Your workup may include:

• Positioning maneuvers that stress the SI joint specifically; several of them provoking your familiar pain is meaningful evidence
• Imaging, mainly to rule out other sources rather than to confirm this one
• An image-guided diagnostic injection into the joint — the most reliable confirmation available, because relief following a well-placed injection points directly at the joint

That last step is worth understanding: with the SI joint, the response to a precisely placed injection is often better evidence than any scan.

How we treat it

Treatment usually begins conservatively, with physical therapy aimed at the muscles supporting the pelvis. When pain persists, targeted options step up in sequence:

Which of these fits depends on what the diagnostic injection shows and how your pain behaves afterward. That result, not a standard protocol, is what the plan gets built around.

When to seek care promptly

Seek care immediately if low back or buttock pain comes with loss of bowel or bladder control, numbness in the groin or inner thighs, or new leg weakness. Get evaluated promptly, too, for pain accompanied by fever or unexplained weight loss.

Short of that: one-sided buttock pain that has persisted for weeks — particularly if you’ve been treated for a disc without improvement — deserves a look at the joint instead.

Get answers about one-sided back pain

If your imaging keeps coming back clean while the pain stays exactly where it’s always been, the SI joint is worth ruling in or out properly. Dr. López and the Seaside Spine and Pain Center team can do that.

Call (386) 222-7746 or request an appointment.