Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcasts. I perform these podcasts in the hopes that you will be able to education yourself on the topics discussed so you can make better informed medical decisions regarding your health in the future. I am doctor Harrison Campbell of Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. Previously we discussed treatment options for disc herniations and facet syndrome. Some of these treatments overlapped and we discussed the reasoning behind this. Tonight, we will be discussing sacroiliac joints, symptoms when we have joint dysfunction here, and treatments for this dysfunction.
The pelvis as sugar land chiropractors know is formed of three bones. You have a sacrum and two ilia which form a ring structure that is the pelvis. Where these sacrum meats the ilia is a joint which is known as the sacroiliac joint. It is these joints which we will be discussing this evening. Now this particular joint is unique in that there is a portion of the joint which has a capsule, but the majority of this joints does not. Additionally, this joint is held together exclusively by ligaments with muscles not playing a role in stability.
Motion wise, these joints have very little. The primary function of the pelvis as a whole it to connect the trunk or torso with the lower body. There is however motion that occurs in these joints during movement of the hips. To understand why let us review the hip briefly. The hip is a ball and socket joint where the femoral head is the ball portion and the acetabulum is the socket. The hip is a very stable joint and this stability comes at the cost of decreased mobility. This is what sugar land chiropractors call the inverse relationship of joints. Because of this reduced motion we need an accessory to increase the overall motion of the hip. Thus we have the sacroiliac joints. These joints rock anterior and posterior which provides motion to the acetabulum itself. By moving the acetabulum we increase the overall motion of the hip. This is analogous to the scapula motion to increase shoulder motion, which we may cover in a future podcast.
Now this rocking motions is the primary motion of the sacroiliac joints, but there is lateral motion of these joints as well. This lateral motion we will ignore for the most part, because only is specific circumstances does it play a significant role for patients. Back to the forward backwards motions. When the leg is swing forward, the sacroiliac joint rocks backwards. This backwards motion increase he hips ability to swing forward by quote unquote clearing the acetabulum for more forward motion. When we swing our leg backwards, the opposite motion happens. The sacroiliac joint swings forward to clear the acetabulum backwards to provide more extension. Remember this as we transition into why this mechanism creates joint dysfunction.
Problems arise with the forward and backward motion due to our cultural habits. What sugar land chiropractors mean by this is our daily activities lead us to having these types of problems occur. For instance, a majority of Americans are sedentary for most of the day. This is not due to laziness, but because we are either students in a classroom or we hold some type of desk job. If we are sitting for a majority of our day, the legs are swung forward and held for longs periods of time. This forces backwards motion of the sacroiliac joints. Now during walking this motion occurs only in spurts. Sitting maintains these positions and the sacroiliac joint can becomes quote unquote stuck in this position.
Some of you who visit sugar land chiropractors for care on a somewhat regular basis may have heard them say that you have a short leg or a posterior ilium. This is because of the sacroiliac joint rocking backwards and becoming stuck. Now let us explore the short leg aspect of this. When the sacroiliac joint rocks backwards the acetabulum swing forward. Now because we are rotating around a point the acetabulum does not just go straight forward, it comes up at an angle. This means the leg is quote unquote short because the acetabulum sits slightly higher when the sacroiliac joint is stuck in in extension or what is called a posterior ilium or PI for short. This is what gives the short leg diagnosis patients have heard when visiting their sugar land chiropractors for treatment.
As for the treatment of sacroiliac joint dysfunction a chiropractic adjustment is a very good solution to the problem. What the adjustment does is what we have stated adjustments do. We restore normal free range of motion to the joint. In this particular case the posterior ilium is manipulated to restore it to its normal resting position which restores normal free range of motion. Most people associate an adjustment with a pop. For the sacroiliac joints there is very rarely a popping sound when the joint is adjusted. The reason for this is due to what makes the pop. Gas in the joint capsule is where the noise comes from, and if you recall the anatomy of the sacroiliac joint, only a small portion of the joint has a capsule. This means that there is usually no gas in the joint for the popping sound to be produced.
Now there are several ways for sugar land chiropractors to adjust the sacroiliac joint. My personal method is using a drop table to assist in the adjustment. I find that most patients enjoy this type of adjusting the best. For stubborn joints where the ligaments are not cooperating there is using SOT blocks where gravity helps the ligaments cooperate with the adjustment. Additionally, there is diversified technique where side posture adjustments are used, which is common among chiropractors.
Thank you for joining me again this evening for another great podcast. I hope you enjoyed the discussion on sacroiliac joints and the anatomy behind them. As always should you or someone you know require a sugar land chiropractors services or simply have more questions on what was discussed please call Restoration Health today. We would love to schedule you an appointment and get you on the path to better health today. Thank you once again for joining us. Have a good night.