The SI joint or the Sacroiliac joint is a small but firm joint that is located at the spot around the spine and the pelvis. When you say joints, you may think of knees, shoulders, elbow, ankle and hips but the SI joint does not have the mobility as other joints in the body do. But it is a very important part that transfers the weight of your upper body to your lower body. You may have symptoms of the SI joint pain but because this is something you hardly hear of you wouldn’t think that this is what you may have.

Some of the symptoms are difficult to diagnose for these reasons, the SI joint is not easy to manipulate or palpated, the tests the doctors run do not isolate the SI joint, studies on such tests done like the X-ray, MRI, Bone scan and Cat scan come back normal most of the time. There are other back pain aliments that have the same symptoms such as sciatica and hip arthritis.

To diagnose the doctor will feel the joint and see if the SI area is soft and tender to the touch. There are tests that can apply some pressure to the area and if there is some pain there then there may be an underlying problem. There is one test called the FABER test and this test is performed lying down and by flexing your hip, abducting the leg and rotating the hip, the doctor can determine whether the SI joint is infected. All these are done to produce a pressure to the joint.

If the doctor still can’t tell then an injection is done into the joint so it can be properly diagnosed. If the injection actually helps the symptoms you were experiencing then the test would come back positive for an infected SI joint. If the test comes back positive then you may need conservative therapy. The first thing they do is determine which activity that you have been doing that may have caused the problem. Then the doctor will give you an anti inflammatory medications not a pain reliever per se but to reduce the inflammation, which in turn will lower the pain you are in. Physical therapy may be required. If all of these treatments fail then you may get an injection of cortisone, that should work. But the injections would be given under an X ray in the hospital due to the fact that the SI joint is deeper into the body than the other joints.

For additional information and resources on Chronic Pain, visit PainsWeb.com. The author Sam Carson is a chronic pain patient and publisher of PainsWeb.com. His website specializes in conveying targeted information about all types of Chronic Pain and helps you find associated information, patient resources and forums etc to manage your pain. Authors can submit quality original articles to PainsWeb.com and get a back link to their site.