Sacroiliitis is an inflammation of the sacroiliac joint. It usually causes pain in the lower back so it is often mistaken for lumbalgia. If you have been diagnosed with sacroiliitis, or have any of these symptoms and you wonder if you can continue your normal work activity with this condition, this article will answer your questions.
The sacroiliac joints connect the sacrum with the iliac bone (hip bones) of the pelvis. We each have two of them, one on either side. Although it is called a joint, its function is not to articulate movement, like other joints, but rather to act as a shock absorber in distributing the weight of the upper body to the pelvis and legs.
Sacroiliitis occurs when there is an inflammation of the sacroiliac joints, or a mechanical sacroiliac joint dysfunction, which causes pain in the lower lumbar area or pain that radiates mainly to the buttock of one side, although it can also radiate downward to part of leg, similar to a symptom of sciatica.
Because its symptoms are similar to these other pathologies, and because sacroiliitis is not easily diagnosed through radiological imaging tests, between 15% and 20% of cases are mistaken for lumbalgia. So to detect it accurately, it is essential to rely on sound clinical diagnosis and joint injections.
Can you work with sacroiliitis?
Because sacroiliitis is difficult to diagnose correctly, it is common to find patients with it who have been living with pain for a long time, reducing their quality of life, sometimes to the extent that they are temporarily or permanently unable to carry out their normal work activities. In addition, this type of back pain is usually more intense than the pain caused by degenerative disc disease.
However, there is no single answer to the question of whether a patient with this condition can work or not, because it depends on how advanced the state of the pathology is, what the original cause was, and the patient’s general health and the nature of their work activity, among other factors.
It will be the specialist doctor or physical therapist who determines whether the patient needs to stop working and for how long, based on the patient’s symptoms and the type of treatment to be carried out, which can be either conservative or surgical.
Symptoms of sacroiliitis
The main symptom of sacroiliitis is pain, which is usually quite intense. However, the area in which it occurs can vary:
- Low back pain on one side
- Pain radiating to the groin or hip
- Pain radiating to the buttock
- Less frequently - Pain that radiates down the leg through an area affected by a nerve, as in sciatica.
These symptoms usually manifest themselves especially during prolonged sitting or standing, climbing stairs, or turning to lie in a way that puts pressure on the affected side, so it is common for patients to complain of night pain.
Treatment of sacroiliitis
The treatment for sacroiliitis can be any of various conservative treatments, or surgery, depending on the case. Conservative treatment options include the following:
- Physical therapy to strengthen the pelvic muscles
- Wearing a pelvic brace.
- Joint injections or infiltration.
- Radiofrequency or rhizolysis.
If these options do not prove effective, the specialist may recommend sacroiliac fusion surgery. This treatment is quite recent and was described for the first time in 2008. In the video below, our neurosurgeon Dr. Ignasi Català, who is a specialist in sacroiliitis, explains more about this pathology, what is involved in sacroiliac fusion surgery, and how it can improve the patient's quality of life.
The team at Instituto Clavel hopes that we have answered your questions about this pathology. We recommend that if you have any of the symptoms described in this article, that you talk to a specialist about them as soon as possible. If you would like to ask us about your case, or get more information from us personally, we encourage you to contact us and we will be happy to help you.
Categories: Spine pathologies, Lumbar pain, Rehabilitation