Rider S/I Joint Dysfunction - riding; treatment; surgery questions

[myblackmorgan3]

I’ve had a few bad riding falls - always land on my right hip - and that is no doubt part of my right S/I joint pain, along with right leg slightly shorter than other and a couple difficult childbirths.

PT thinks I have an anterior right ilium rotation and the right S/I joint is very loose, along with the leg length discrepancy.

Orthopedic surgeon see a lot of inflammation in right S/I joint and pubic symphysis and is having me tested for Ankylosing spondylitis, which I hope to hell is isn’t. But he sees no hip rotation on x-ray although I’ve read mixed comments as to if this CAN actually be seen on x-ray. He wants to do steroid injections and also fuse the joint.

Soon seeing a Chiropractor who used to ride to see what HER opinion is.

My questions:

1. Has anyone ridden with a partially rotated pelvis - I think it would cause issues for the horse and indeed my mare did have some issues which were treated (although this could have also been due to an unknown injury etc…)

2. How is riding after the joint injection? And did it impede you from knowing if PT/chiropractic was actually helping? Did it encourage you to do more than perhaps you should have?

3. Has anyone had the joint fused? I understand that the S/I joint normally doesn’t have much movement, but did it impede your flexibility enough that riding was difficult/not optimal? I understand that it is a pretty big surgery and have no idea how long the average recovery period is.

4. Does anyone carriage drive with any of these issues? How is that?

Many thanks!

[TFF]

Well, I cannot answer all of your questions, but I have had multiple SI joint injections. I have Ankylosing Spondylitis, which has cause my SI joints to almost fuse completely. A few months ago, I had an injection in my right SI joint under fluroscopy (don’t have any sort of injection done if they are not going to use a fluroscope…because most of the time they don’t actually get into the joint).

I was back to “normal” after about 5 days. My SI joint pain had significantly decreased afterwards.

Riding has been a little on and off for me. I can ride, but it definitely hurts a lot afterwards. I am working towards my goal of being able to return to riding English, and was making pretty good progress until I ruptured two disks in by back.

jingles to you! PM me if you need any more info on AS (Ankylosing Spondylitis). It’s a bear of a disease, but I had a wonderful physical therapist that used to ride that said it was BS that all of my doctors said I should stop riding. She said that I could definitely survive hopping around the adult hunters every once and a while. She grew up riding, so she literally the best therapist ever.