Because of severe back pain, a woman receives physiotherapy and painkillers, she undergoes surgery and spends a long time in rehab. But the downward spiral continues – until a specialist intervenes elsewhere.
When I met the woman, she had been suffering from severe back pain for 15 years. The woman, in her early 40s, seemed dejected. She reported that she had been through everything one could go through as a back pain patient. She told her story: Several X-rays and magnetic resonance examinations had shown that her lumbar spine was severely worn out, i.e. degeneratively changed.
She received physiotherapy and painkillers, had two operations on her intervertebral discs and was in rehab for a long time. The lower back pain remained. The patient sought help from psychosomatics, received psychotropic medication, and was given antidepressants. But the gradual downward spiral of pain, medication and therapy continued. The woman came across a medical history in a magazine that was similar to her own. The patient described had also experienced a medical odyssey, only the cause of the pain was different: the trigger was the sacroiliac joint, known as the SIJ for short. The woman turned to the expert quoted – that was me. Now she was sitting in front of me with a folder with doctor’s reports and findings. I examined her. The pain did not match the diagnoses described so far, such as a herniated disc, root irritation, wear and tear of the vertebral bodies, and osteochondrosis. She had more of a “joint pain”. I perked up when she told me that the whole misery had suddenly started after the birth of the second child.