By Greg on Monday, December 17, 2001 - 07:23 pm:

To Park and everyone,

I've had severe SIJD for over 4 years now. It has been relatively asymptomatic for almost a year, while I have had my shoulders and neck treated very succesfully with prolotherapy. Over the past few weeks, I have been having severe relapses of pain in my SI joints (more the left, as it has always been the worse side). I have also been having some severe on-and-off testicle pain, mostly in the left side (coincidence?). This testicle pain is new, and I am worried that it may be a problem unrelated to joint problems. So,Park, I see you are tremendously knowledgable about SI joints, and I was wondering if you had any knowledge of prespective on whether SI joint dysfunction/syndrome can cause testicle pain. I am having this new pain checked out by and MD, but the last time he said everything looked fine and all labs were normal. I hate to always suspect EDS for my health problems, but my SI's have been so bad that I stopped chiropractic because by the time I made it to my car they were "out" of alignment again. My muscles in my low back and pelvic area are terribley atrophied, predictably. I have been dreading the day that I will let my prolo doctor stick the needle into my low back/SI, but if this new testicle pain in originating from my SIs'/low back, then I might just be pushed over the edge, and begin the terrible ordeal of strengthening the destroyed ligmaments in my SI area. Park, I hope you can help me here, and I appreciate your knowledgable and compassionate postings. If anyone else has some input, I would greatly appreciate your educating me. Thank you and take care.

Greg

By Park Griffin on Tuesday, December 18, 2001 - 04:52 am:

Greg, I am not a doctor, so, no sense giving you second hand information, but I did run a search using the website www.google.com

Use this as your sesrch query: testicle sacroiliac

You will come up with more information than you probably ever wanted to know about the subject.

P.S. Prolo in the SI joint ligaments is less painful than other areas. Use should concentrate the prolo in the short and long posterior SI ligaments. Injections in any other area will only guarantee more pain, but will do nothing positive to addressing the dysfunction.

Merry Christmas! Park

By Silvia on Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 05:58 am:

Greg,

Groin pain is something that can be experienced with hypermobility. I've had pain in multiple places in my body, the wors't being my right SI joint, and prolotherapy has helped tremendously. I'm still in pain though, but not as bad as before and I'm still in treatment. Check out the link below on prolo and back pain. One of the last paragraphs explains how the iliolumbar ligament can refer pain to the groin area.

http://prolonews.com/prolotherapy_e-newsletter_archives___low_back_pain.htm

Hope this helps

Silvia

By Park Griffin on Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 10:20 am:

Greg, I wouldn't run out and have your iliolumbar ligament prolo'd because your testicle hurts or if you have groin pain. The iliolumbar ligament, if it is too tight will not allow your pelvis to rotate back into position when there is a subluxation as in Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction.

When you sublax, the hypermobility allows the pelvis to raise up in the back and drop down in the front. This rotates the pelvis clockwise allowing the pelvis to become more anteriorly positioned compared to the sacrum. Hence, SIJD, is commonly referred to as: Anterior Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction.

In SIJD, when the pelvis goes up in the back destabilizes the iliolumbar ligament because the ilial insertion point of the ligament is positioned closer to its lumbar origin. When a therapist aligns you they need to raise up your pelvis in the front and drop down the pelvis in the back (this manuever rotates the pelvis counterclockwise).

If you inject the iliolumbar ligament when your pelvis is anteriorly rotated, this tightens the iliolumbar ligament. This is definitely not a good thing! When the therapist tries to get your pelvis down in the back, the tight iliolumbar ligament inhibits the downwards movement of the back side of the pelvis. In essence, your pelvis is stuck out of alignment. If they do manage to get your pelvis aligned, and you have been having the iliolumbar ligament injected, you end up with prolotherapy induced iliolumbar ligament strain.

I can argue all day about Dr. Hauser. He is a good doctor and prolotherapist, but there are professionals out there that have better knowledge of the functional mechanics and pathomechanics of the Lumbosacral/pelvis area.

From a pathomechanical standpoint, there is not much room for debate on how prolotherapy should be applied for lumbosacral dysfunctions. If you want the optimum chance of sustaining proper alignment and having the chronic pain reduced the most, prolotherpay should be focused and pinpointed as follows:

1. Prolotherapy should ONLY be sdministered into the long and short posterior SI ligaments. These ligaments are the only ones that truely stretch when your pelvis over rotates clockwise. (Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction).

2. It is imperative that you seek out compitent physical therapy. The more you keep your pelvis aligned, the faster you will heal w/ prolo. Equally as important is for you to perform self correction exercises to help keep your pelvis aligned between therapy visits and prolo visits.

3. The last thing you want to do is to chase chronic pain around with a prolo needle. Take care of the alignment issue first and most of the chronic pain will go away with it.

4. If you keep injecting the short and long posterior SI ligaments and you have found a good therapist, but your pelvis still keeps going out of place, it is not because of any other ligament! It is because of two things (One or a number of the short and long posterior SI ligaments are blown totally -OR- your anterior Sacroiliac Joint Capsule is torn). Prolotherapy will not help secure blown ligaments or repair torn joint capsules. (Many people end up having their sacrum surgically fixated or fused at this point. NOTE: THIS IS A LAST RESORT PROCEDURE AND SHOULD ONLY BE DONE AFTER MUCH CONSIDERATION.

5. If you are only a little lucky, prolo injections into the short and long posterior ligaments w/ physical therapy should be all you need.

6. Sometimes after successful treatment, when your pelvis is finally stabilized, you may still have rsidual chronic pain. THEN AND ONLY THEN SHOULD PROLO BE USED TO CHASE AROUND CHRONIC PAIN.

Specifically regarding the iliolumbar ligament. Sometimes after obtaining proper pelvic alignment and stabilization, there may be residual sheering at L5-S1 or residual laxicity of the iliolumbar ligaments. Now is the time to prolo the iliolumbar ligaments. Again, only if your pelvis is aligned properly and stable!!!

Greg, I know this is alot of info, so don't be afraid to ask questions.

Park

By Greg on Tuesday, December 25, 2001 - 11:27 am:

Park,

Thanks for all the great info. I had my prolo doc adjust my SI joints the other day, and my testicle pain as well as back pain vanished. The trouble is, and has always been that the adjustment lasts 24 hours at the absolute most, and then the pain comes right back, sometimes worse than it was before. I'm not convinced that anything can really help me, but I'm going to give it a try. Thanks again,

Greg

By Park Griffin on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 05:37 am:

Greg, It is so imperative that YOU self correct your SIJ's at home, also. I'm not saying that there is not a chance that this will fail, but, it is much better than considering "the knife".

There is a higher probability than not, that you are not getting a complete correction and you slip out because of it. Again, there is always a chance that you are simply too hypermobile to stay in, but you must feverishly do what you can at home to stay corrected. I'm going to make the following short, so that we can go back and forth to work through this. I'll get more indepth as we go along.

Here is a startling statistic that has been cited by one of the leading experts in SIJD: Only 10 percent of medical professionals state that they understand and know how to correct SIJD. Of those 10 percent who state that they can, only about 2 percent really know what they are doing.

There is a greater chance than not that your Doctor is not obtaining a complete alignment allowing your pelvis to slip. Also, the longer you can stay in alignment the better prolotherapy works.

If your doctor focuses on the long and short posterior SI ligaments and stays away form all the others, this will fast track your chance at success because the others are a waste of time. Also injecting the other ligaments causes unwanted tightness and conjestion in the area, causing it to become very difficult to align the SIJ's.

Describing how your doctor aligns you will be a help. Also, let me know if you have somebody at home who can help you with a home correction program.

I would not getr discouraged yet. My wife suffered for over four years before being diagnosed properly as having SIJD. Once she knew what she had, she would slip out of alignment in 10 seconds after a correction not 24 hours. Once she learned how to correct herself at home and had 8 or so prolo treatments spaced one month apart, she could keep her SIJ's in. She has had 15 prolo sessions so far, and I have become rather proficient at correcting her SIJ's. I only have to correct her about once a week now and within a minute I can have her back in alignment.

Your doctor doesn't have to be an expert to be a blessing, but your persistance and self-help most likely will play a major role in your care, too.

Park

By Greg on Sunday, January 06, 2002 - 06:34 pm:

Park and everyone,

Well, it's weeks after my first post in this string, and I am feeling much better. My prolo doc wanted to start prolo on my SI's because of my severe pain, but I had him do my upper back instead. I did though, have him give my SI's full adjustments for the past three weeks. After the first adjustment, my testicle pain was cut almost 75% from what it felt like before the adjustment. My doc is a DO, and said I was really "out." After the second adjustment, I felt even better, and after this past one, I have been able to get back to my weight training without testicle pain. My urologist was "shocked that your SIs and back had anything to do with the testicle pain." LOL, MDs think they know it all; ultrasounds of the testicles were perfectly normal of course. So, my hunch that the terrible pain from my SI's has pretty much been concerned, and in a few weeks, I will start the arduous process of prolo'ing my SIs. Thanks to you all for your information and support.

Greg