Tailbone Pain or Coccydnia

I had the most excruciating tailbone pain, postpartum with my first child. I couldn’t do a lot of basic things like go from sitting to standing, lie on my side, run or jump without having shooting pain at my tailbone. Tailbone pain or coccydnia is pain at the coccyx which is a small triangular bone at base of your spine. Women are 5x more likely to get coccydnia.

Direct trauma like falls on buttock can cause a bruised, dislocated, or a fractured coccyx; internal injury from childbirth, or prolonged sitting on hard surfaces like a bike seat can cause injury.

Coccyx pain can be pain referral from your pelvic floor muscles, gluteal muscles, can be from the sacroiliac joint (SI jt) or sacrococcygeal joint. The coccyx can be too stiff or move too much (hypomobile or hypermobile). It can also be from abdominal scars or restrictions in abdomen, infection etiologies such as pilonidal cyst, masses, or psychological disorders. Tailbone pain can be tricky to treat since you have to figure out where source of pain is coming from.

Pelvic floor physical therapy can be the best treatment option! The tip of the coccyx is deep and every pelvic floor muscle directly or indirectly attaches to the coccyx therefore sometimes internal transrectal assessment is the best treatment. Spasm of these muscles can be worked on transrectally and the coccyx can be assessed for mobility. Other options include changing your position with sitting, posture, breathing and stretches, and external work around the area or spine.

Are you suffering from tailbone pain? Come in for assessment and lets get you on a program!

For more info here is a great article:
Lesley Smallwood Lirette, MD, Gassan Chaiban, MD, and Hazem Eissa, MD. Coccydynia: An Overview of the Anatomy, Etiology, and Treatment of Coccyx Pain. Ochsner J. 2014 Spring; 14(1): 84–87.