I’ve treated many women with tailbone pain recently.
Tailbone pain / Coccyx pain / Coccydynea is up to 5 times more common in women than men and can really interfere with life!
Pain in the tailbone can make it VERY uncomfortable to sit, or even stand if we’ve been sitting for a long time. It can also hurt to lie flat on your back or when you empty your bowels.
It can be caused by:
➖ Direct trauma, like birthing or a fall on the butt
➖ Overactive or dysfunctional pelvic floor muscles (some of which have a direct attachment to the pelvic floor)
➖ Referral from a nearby structure (like the lumbar spine)
Tailbone pain often doesn’t go away quickly, and we need to address it from a few different angles.
The treatment approach was slightly different for each of the women I saw this week, but they included some variation of:
👉🏼 practising offloading the tailbone in sitting positions by using the sit bones instead
👉🏼 making sure bowel emptying positions and techniques are optimal and fibre & fluids are up for stool consistency
👉🏼 some soft tissue techniques for tension release of glutes & deep hip muscles
👉🏼 exercises to encourage relaxation & length in the pelvic floor
👉🏼 advice about all the things that might be helping and hindering in everyday life.
Bottom line- ‘wait and see’ does not always get results with tailbone pain.