I’ve been diagnosed with sacroiliac joint pain and misaligned joint after repetitive stress overuse injury (diagnosis by MD). Quite painful. I am 2 weeks into Physical Therapy. Some people have said that a Chiropractor would be able to help. Do any of you have experience with long and short term healing of this? I am planning to stick with PT for another few weeks, but would love to hear of treatments which have helped others.
If your SI is rotated out of position, you need a PT who practices manual PT and can help get the joint back in position. This will usually be a PT who specializes in treating endurance athletes such as runners. I have had this injury. The next step is to retrain your glute and hip muscles to help keep the joint in proper position.
I don’t know where you are located, but a local running store or message board might help you get to the right person. It can be a tough I mury to treat and can recur. I’ve been there!
If it is really shifted out of place it may need manipulation from a chiro or your PT. If you are particularly flexible and your ligaments don’t hold that flat, puzzle-piece joint in place well it can slid (my problem). If you have tight muscles through your hips and/or hamstrings it can also shift. A good PT and/or chiro can identify which muscle gorups are tight and weak and give you exercised and stretches to balance things. My H has this problem at times and really benefits from daily stretching after he got it adjusted.
Son had this from football. He had back pain so bad he couldn’t even bend over to tie his shoes. We went to family doctor who did tests by moving him about etc. He said it was his sacroiliac and he did an “adjustment.” Apparently many DO’s are trained in manipulations. It worked immediately, but only for a day or two and then was worse. He went back and we ended up asking for an MRI. I thought the sacroiliac thing was bs.
The MRI came in and it showed a disc at L4-5, minor herniation. I said aha! I knew it was not SI, so off we went to the orthopedist. Orthopedist evaluated him, looked at MRI and announced that he thinks its his SI. I was stunned. I was sure it was his herniation. The ortho did not know that the GP had said sacroiliac. Ortho said he would give him a cortisone shot in his SI and we would know right away if it helped that it was his SI and not the disc. He gave the shot, son felt better right away, stunned again!. After a week or 2 he felt pretty normal and that pain has not returned. It’s been almost 3 years. It was spring of 2012, he didn’t play college football after that spring because the back pain really messed up his spring season. He had had the pain since fall football, but we all thought it was pain from lifting etc. It was a few months before he saw the dr. for it. His sacroiliac was out of whack! Although we mourned the end of football, in retrospect it was probably best for his long term health. Concussions and leg injuries are rampant it seems.
I suggest you see an orthopedist or someone who can rule out a serious problem (if you haven’t already). A shot may do you wonders, as may an adjustment once you know the adjustment won’t harm you. Son apparently had inflammation which maybe kept the adjustment from holding, since he’d been “out” for a while. Dr did say he might need PT after the shot, but he didn’t. Your mileage may vary since you are probably not a 19 year old in top shape! (or are you?)
This might be helpful.
Probably more than a chiro.
http://triggerpointrelief.com/cdrom/piriformis.html
Physical therapists are, IMO, awesome. Chiros – uh, not so much.
YMMV.
It all depends on who you have. I am fortunate to have a great one who doesn’t want to see me 
RE post #4 - his last bullet point is chiropractic adjustment to get a misaligned SI back into place before all the other treatments and preventatives will work. They key is a chiro who “believes in” the soft tissue treatments and preventatives so that your issues are eliminated or minimized. There are those who want to see you back indefinitely or for a series of treatments based on what your insurance allows.
I have had pain in that area for about a year. I finally saw an orthopedist who sent me to a PT. She diagnosed some tendinosis around the gluteus medius. I’ve been working with her for about four weeks and am greatly improved. She gave me certain exercises to do and they are really helping.
I love my chiro. I’ve seen him for a couple of soft tissue injuries from running. I’ve never had a chiropractic adjustment from him, just ART (and he gave me exercises too).
The point is that if the joint is truly misaligned as the OP’s diagnosis suggests some kind of manipulation by chiro or PT will be in order to get it back to alignment BEFORE the anti-inflammatory and preventative things will be effective.
I have had good luck with chiro and I was a skeptic going in. The one bit of advice I have is to figure out the underlying cause and treat that----which PT could do. If there is some kind of weakness that lets the SI get wonky, fix that weakness.
I have had PT several times to try to improve this. I have found great success for pain management with steroid shots. I generally do l4,5,s1 every six months.
Thanks for the info and insights. The PT seems to be slowly moving the joint back and I have exercises. For cases in those not under 30 - like in 50s- were you or others able to get back into things like day hiking, bicycling, kayaking, swimming after treatment and strengthening?