SI Joint stress fracture?

It’s been a year since I first had ‘pain in the arse’ symptoms, and couple of months later mentioned it on my blog.  I remember running in lastyears Anglezarke Amble.  I remember falling on my arse very hard a couple of times, due to the appalling conditions.  I have no idea if that caused or contributed to my current situation but I am more and more suspicious that it did.  A couple of months after (April 2012) that I wan the Coventry Way 40, very badly.  Suffering lower bag and hamstring pain.  Since then I have been more or less limited to 10-15 miles running before pain coming from my sacrum, coccyx area, slows me to a painful walk or half jog.

I have pain in my right buttock all the time, when seated, when walking. Sometimes it is low level dull ache, sometimes it’s sharp.  It never really goes away.  When I run the pain gets considerably worse until that 10 mile mark where it’s pretty much a show-stopper.

I’ve tried physiotherapy, osteopath and chiropractic with no joy. Finally I saw a UK Athletics physio, a guy I saw for my old groin injury.  He referred me to see a spinal surgeon in London.  The surgeon saw me for probably only 10 minutes yesterday, listened to the story, did a brief exam and said he suspects I have a stress fracture of my right SI Joint, and possibly a L5 issue.  He has ordered 3 MRI scans. The scans will take place next Wednesday. The scans are, the right hip, L5 spine, and a STIR (a fat suppressing sequence as I understand it). Reports are due to go to several radiologists for analysis, then I go back to see the consultant in London in a couple of weeks.

He briefly mentioned increasing Vitamin D, calcium levels and getting metabolically built up.  Beyond that he didn’t outline any treatment, as at the moment he needs to see the imaging results to be certain.

Having put on my internet doctor hat and read around yesterday, it seems a surprising diagnosis as it seems most fractures heal within a couple of months.  Maybe because I didn’t get the appropriate diagnosis and treatment at the onset, and just tried to run through it, I may have delayed the correct healing process and caused complications?  I don’t know, but I do know that it’s not getting any better on it’s own, much like the long term Gilmore groin injury I had in 2010/2011 that required (successful) corrective surgery.

The literature online suggests ultra runners are the classicpatient to present with a Sacral stress fracture (so those heavy arse falls at Anglezarke may not necessarily be the blame).  Anyway, hopefully the surgeon is onto something and I can get answers finally.

In the meantime, I am continuing to organise my own ultra events in 2013, and that is all going well.  I may not be the one leading the organised recces of the courses this year but I’ll sweet-talk my ultra-running wife to be into that ;)

Have a good week!