Hi
I came off and landed on my tailbone last October. I don’t recommend it.
I discovered after hacking in the forest the other week (45 min walk ride) that my tailbone doesn’t like that. It has been ok with shorter rides.
Does anyone have a damaged tailbone and how do you cope riding? I’ve been looking at the Acavallo gel seat savers, are they any good? Do they help?
I found that doing Pilates regularly helps keep the majority of discomfort away.
TIA 
Tailbone pain is literally a royal PITA. The seat saver sounds like a good idea and worth trying.
I (apparently) broke my tailbone in 1974 and it hurt for years. Finally got better, riding wasn’t normally a problem. Then I started bike riding, 20 miles most nights, more on weekends, and the tailbone pain was back. Had to stop bicycling.
I have a spur on the very end of my tailbone…my tailbone has a tail and not in the right place:no:. It is believed to be a congenital issue but probably didn’t bother me when I was younger because I was fat (plenty of padding). I have managed to lose weight plus the sacrococcygeal joint above has now fused and it is most annoying and limiting. it has bothered me for more than 10 years but was initially I would get sore that rapidly resolved by using a cut-out cushion and riding didn’t particularly bother it as long as I didn’t spend hours in the saddle. 6 years ago, it flared and then late 2015, for the first time riding became too painfu:grief:l. It has settled a bit. I can do short rides (20-30 minutes) as long as I don’t ride on consecutive days but, yes…it sucks. Gait wise, walking bothers it the least…of course NO sitting trot and I have to be careful in canter to make sure she is relaxed and giving me a decent place to sit. Some days even posting trot is too much.
I am waiting to have mine removed (Apr 24th). Radical and something I am not looking forward to but I know I will have no relief as long as that spur is there. Recovery is 12-18 months. My riding days may be over?
What I have done and helps some is buy a pair of the FITS breeches with the butt patches and then some Thinline shims and cut them to fit that top narrow patch. It leaves a nice little channel for tailbone relief. I cut a small hole on the inside of the breech and fit the shim into the little pocket. I had to close my eyes to cut into a pair of $180 breeches but the fabric hasn’t unraveled at all. With my issue, I cannot have any pressure on the TB at all. Foam pads and gels only “push back” against that spur. I also have a seat saver on my saddle with another piece of Thinline under the seat saver with a ‘V’ cut out of the cantle side. That only helps marginally anymore but it does help. Without it, I doubt I could sit in a saddle.
Problems with the tailbone are hard to get diagnosed. I have had 2 separate extensive workups and it was a chiropractor that took the time to compare all the imaging I have had to find it. You might try a cut-out cushion around the house and at work to take some stress off of it on a daily basis. It is hard to heal up if you sit a lot. They take a notoriously long time to heal.
This is my favorite cushion. I have stock in the company (not really–but I feel like I should)
https://www.amazon.com/Contour-Produ…2Bcushion&th=1.
Jingles on a resolution.
Susan
I injured mine quite a while ago and it took a long time to heal. So be patient! Riding didn’t irritate the injury too much though, not like sitting in a car. We took a 5 hr road trip shortly after I hurt myself and that really sucked!
Anyway, try the seat saver–it could help. You could play around with your position in the saddle too–try some no stirrup work so that you are sitting more on your seat bones.
Good luck!
Sorry you have to deal with this. I had such an injury and it took a very long time to get better
I did the same thing. Came off a young colt and hit a fence post. It took a LONG time to heal. Couldn’t stand up or sit down and steps were excrutiating for months. The only thing I found to help was the tincture of time and some rest. Could still walk just did everything slow
This is my peculiar experience:
I dislocated my tailbone probably 50+ years ago. It healed.
Last year I started having intense tailbone pain. After I started wearing a sacroiliac belt the pain went away and hasn’t returned. This could be coincidence only, but it’s the only thing that I did differently. The sacroiliac belt also puts pressure on the lower spine.
So, IMO, no matter how crazy it sounds, tailbone pain can be related to something that is not tailbone at all.
I have the acavallo pad and like it and its very sticky . I buy Dr Scholl’s gel foot pads and cut them so I have a nice hole for my tailbone. One side of the pad is a little sticky so that goes next to my tight underwear. I know it sounds wierd but this allows me to have the hole right where it best for me and its also cheap and you can double up for more relief. Its the best solution I’ve found though I do mean to do a search because I’m certain this stuff must come in rolls like fabric. Anyway whatever you buy make sure you can customize it as where you think it will work may not be exactly the right spot on your body and so with this I can move it around(riding behind everyone else) while riding so its on the perfect spot which may change depending on gait. Hope that makes sense.
I do have damage in my back, so am wondeirng if the tailbone flare up could be referred pain?
It has been suggested that I have a steroid injection in my tailbone :eek:
KyrieNZ—injections aren’t bad…at least the butt load (literally:lol:) that I had were not. Just be sure they are done with fluoroscopic guidance. Doing the injections will actually rule out referred pain. My pain was definitely central to the tailbone. I didn’t feel it was referred but I do have a lot of lumbar and sacral arthritis. I still had to have one more injection for rule out before the surgeon would consider removal.
I had my coccygectomy late last month…finally. The pain started as a mostly annoying ache when sitting somewhere around 2005. I had no trauma, the pain just spontaneously started. It escalated in 2011 and I had my first work-up and injections. We ended up thinking I had a fibroid possibly causing the problem so a year later had a (perfectly unnecessary) hysterectomy. I had a largish fibroid in back and low so thought it might have been pressure from that. The hysterectomy helped a bit but not much. I gave it time for healing and went about my life then in fall of 2015 the pain escalated again badly so workup was started again in January of 2016. So far so very good post surgery with no complications. I had a definite pathology on my tailbone…a big spur. Of course I am still sore from the surgery but am optimistic for the future. It definitely is the last ditch thing and a long time coming.
There is a website…coccyx.org…that might give you more information. I spent a lot of time on there. I ended up doing most of the work in diagnosing mine. It was just getting the docs to buy in and order the appropriate imaging. It was a chiropractor that spent a whole 5 minutes comparing all the imaging I had to find the spur. No other health professional including the radiologists bothered to do that:mad:. I don’t know why health professionals don’t take tailbone pain very seriously. It is quite life altering. Just keep after it if you don’t get relief
JIngles that injections help.
Susan
I found this info useful but scary also http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/309486-overview#a4
nerve blocks and pain injections . I’m having difficult time with diagnosis because MRI didn’t show much yet the article above states it takes certain angles of x-rays to show the coccyx correctly especially in women .the hip and femur gets in the way.
Does anyone get leg pain when their tail “goes off”. I get pain in back of thigh and legs feel heavy.
This Pain can be major and this is old injury which like so many of my old injuries it is now really causing trouble because of this very weird situation;i think I’m getting old. How can that be?
I came off and landed on my coccyx when I was 21, I was told all the x-rays were fine and it would just take time. For years I chose restaurants based on what the seats were like. Eventually a chiropractor told me my coccyx was displaced, but I didn’t like the sound of how he intended to manipulate it back.
This went on until I had my first child at 27. In the middle of giving birth there was a loud THWOCK sound, and the entire room stopped and looked at me. Apparently it had slotted back in, but I was told afterwards there was a very good chance of breaking it. I was lucky. The pain pretty much went away except for occasional twinges.
Like VineyRidge, years later I experienced similar pain but it turned out to be a sacroiliac issue and easily treated…
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