injured tailbone

raz208

Hello all, near the end of our ride on Thursday night I hit a large mound of earth which I did not see in the failing light, it nearly threw me from the bike, as I landed I hit the saddle really hard. It left me with a badly bent saddle and a lot of pain on my tailbone. Just wondered if anyone else has encountered this and how long it will take to recover and get back on the bike?

Anonymous

Ooh, ouch. Apart from my dislocated knee, my most long lasting injury was to my tailbone when I was a teenager.
Basically, I'd landed a drop, and as I was soaking up the impact, the rear wheel hit a rock, just as the front wheel hit one of those "wheeltrap" holes, just big enough to stop it dead. Even though I was still absorbing the impact, with my weight still being taken up by my legs, the bike catapulted forwards so violently as to literally kick me up the arse so hard I went flying (and I mean flying) over the bars.
The bike went cartwheeling past me. I was in so much agony I didn't so much tuck and roll, as just curl up into a ball in mid air.

Anyway, my backside was in agony for about a month or so. In hindsight, I really should have seen a doctor. It also gave me my first experience of piles. It hurt so much to crap that I became effectively constipated for about a week, leading to, erm, "other" complications :oops: :shock:
It hurt to sit down, it hurt to lie on my back, it hurt to jog. Hell, everything hurt, except standing still or lying face down.
Horrible.

So, my advice would be, if it really does hurt badly, go see a doctor. It's possible that you might have fractured your coccyxx (tailbone)
I didn't, I kept thinking it would get better by itself - the indestructible nature of youth! - but I wish I had.

raz208

Your accident sounds a lot worse than mine was, and I am not as in much pain as you encountered by the sounds of it. I will see if it settles down over next few days.

Joe_Pineapples

If you nip to the toilet 'to see an old friend off to the coast' and there's blood in the bowl then there may be a small problem.

Either that or you've been to a party at Barrymore's house.

Anonymous

Or you've got piles.

Happy Harry

yeehaamcgee wrote:

So, my advice would be, if it really does hurt badly, go see a doctor. It's possible that you might have fractured your coccyxx (tailbone)
I didn't, I kept thinking it would get better by itself - the indestructible nature of youth! - but I wish I had.

Good advice, that. If it doesn't stop hurting within the time for a bruise to heal, get a second opinion.

About 30 years ago I was doing an evacuation exercise from a 747 simulator and had to jump onto the slide in a sitting position. I didn't jump far enough forward and landed on my coccyx on the door sill as I dropped. I suffered in silence as I was embarrassed. As I've got older it's become apparent that I've damaged a lower vertebra and I suffer increasingly from sciatica and back pain and make frequent visits to the osteopath. (Sheepsteeth would like to have a go on her).

I feel fine when riding the bike but getting off it can be hard work after a long ride. It's not painful enough to warrant getting a FS bike but an alu hardtail hurts.

Joe_Pineapples

Happy Harry, so you'd recommend visiting an Osteopath then?
I've been suffering from non-specific lower back pain for a couple of years now, and my GP seems powerless to help.

Its strangely not a factor when I've been out on the bike, so manipulation clearly helps, but some mornings I wake up and need the g/friend to help me out of bed.

Anonymous

My sister did something similar in coed y brenin. she hurt her coccyx, and didn't do anything about it. now, going on for 9 years or so later, she can still barely sit on a bike for more than a few minutes.

craker

yeah, did that in Morzine after I landed badly. Didn't hurt til the following day and then I found I couldn't bear sitting down. (The flight home was tricky :roll: )

I saw a doctor after a few months because it was taking a long time to heal. His take on it was, 'it takes a long time to heal.'

I don't think there's much can be done except painkillers if its bad. Two years later it occasional bothers me - running seems to exascerbate it - but it has healed more or less.

Happy Harry

Joe_Pineapples wrote:

Happy Harry, so you'd recommend visiting an Osteopath then?
I've been suffering from non-specific lower back pain for a couple of years now, and my GP seems powerless to help.

The first time I experienced back pain it was as sciatica - where the sciatic nerve is trapped in a vertebra. You feel the pain anywhere down one leg including your buttock and down to your heel, but the problem is really in your back. I could barely walk and was off work for 6 weeks. The doc referred me to the hospital for traction but it was useless so I thought I'd try alternative therapy and saw an osteopath. After one session I floated out of the room and the pain was completely gone after three sessions.

An osteopath doesn't treat the symptoms like ordinary medicine, they treat you holistically (as a whole). Most pain is caused by your body compensating for an injury and putting uneven strain on the wrong parts of the skeleton. They'll manipulate your muscles and bones to straighten you up so you walk straight again. It may take two or three treatments to get you straight and the cost is around £40 for the first (they listen to your medical history and examine you) then £30 for subsequent half-hour treatments.

I've used several osteos over the last 20 years as they or I have moved and they've all been superb. The pain tends to build up over months or years and then I go back for another straighten up. I haven't needed to go for about two years but I've been back recently and got sorted out. It seems I hadn't been doing enough stretching exercises before cycling and my back muscles had been pulling me to one side - she could see it when I stood up straight and this had put extra strain on my frame.

Some doctors used to refer you to osteopaths but I think they've now stopped supporting alternative medicine. Since my first experience I've never bothered with the docs, I just go straight to an osteo and have always been sorted out.

Anonymous

Osteopaths are a strange bunch. They're great for dealing with muscular/skeletal problems, but they also claim to heal other, very serious things, which is a bit worrying.

Happy Harry

I used to spend a lot of time in South Africa and my best friend ran a minibus tour company. One of his drivers was a Sangoma - a medicine man. He used to do the Soweto tours because he was so well respected that his bus was never hi-jacked or held at gunpoint.

A couple of times I had a few beers with him and he told me some fascinating stories about how he healed people. Most of the time he used common sense like the rich man who had been taken sick and the doctor found no medical problem and referred him to the Sangoma (this also happened the other way round - if the Sangoma thought the problem could be cured with medicine). In this case the man had three wives in different regions, the Sangoma worked out a time-share and the man was cured. But he also told me how he could remove evil spirits from the body by massaging, chanting and kneading until some sort of blob would come away in his hand and the person would be cured. He had no idea how it happened. He also used muti which was a bag of traditional remedies and superstitious stuff. He would be paid in chicken, goats or even cattle if the patient was rich. He'd inherited the skills from his mother who had been a Sangoma.

There are few doctors outside the cities in South Africa so the Sangoma is often be the only chance for a sick patient and the traditional cures often work. In this country we've lost the people who had the old herbal knowledge (witches?) and it's been replaced by modern medicine so that's where we go. But there does seem to be an overlap in some fields with osteopathy being the most prominent. I hope mine doesn't want paying in cattle again, the farmer's getting suspicious. :?