I have coccydnia, otherwise known as acute tailbone pain. It started a couple of months ago. I’d sit down on the floor too fast and pop right back up again from a searing pain in my tailbone. Occasionally if I was sitting cross-legged and leaned back it would feel really sore right at the tip of my spine.
Well, it’s gotten worse. In the past three days I have had nearly constant tailbone pain, often stinging and debilitating. After sleeping fitfully, knowing between dreams that something is definitely wrong with my backside, I woke up pissed and sore. Getting up to pee in the night was difficult, and when I awoke this morning all I could do was sit and cry at the computer trying to figure out what is wrong with me.
After reading tons of information on the internet I’ve learned that my pain could be caused by any number of things and that the only tried and true cure is surgery. A few people claim acupuncture and massage and exercise have worked for them, but most everyone who is "cured" has their tailbone removed. I could have spurs on my coccyx (tailbone) or it could be misaligned, malformed or too long. My coccyx could be "flipped." I could have a cyst or scoliosis. Sometimes it can be caused by the sufferer being too thin, but everybody can just go ahead and cross that cause right on off the list. Or it could be, my personal favorite, cancer.
The good news is ice and ibuprofen help a little bit. I’ll try a small dose of a muscle relaxer later to see if that helps. That bad news is I don’t have health insurance.
It hurts to sit down, my favorite place to be, and I’m not medically insured. Boy, times are tough for my ass.
4 comments ↓
I can totally relate. I have scoliosis that was never corrected (it’s not too severe), but what really made things bad was breaking my coccyx in high school (I have intense memories of taking the ASVAB test the next day in utter, utter pain).
Ever since, when it rains (I sound like my father, christ) or if I’ve been sitting on a hard surface too long, it KILLS.
I recommend taking Tylenol PM at night. It helps you sleep through the pain a little.
I am soo sorry you are having this problem, Brit. I hope the pain passes soon. And I’m sorry about the health insuance…I wish I could help. :(
I had a similar situation starting about five years ago, and last year I took the surgery route to get rid of it. In my case, it was a cyst at the end of my tailbone (nobody knows how those things are born. There are theories, but that’s about it). My doctor told me they’re typically not dangerous. However, he did indicate that surgery would be in my future at some point, and if I waited until it got really bad it would be more painful (and more complications may arise) during the recovery. That says a lot, because the recovery process was much worse than the surgery. Laying on your front side for a week or two reading books sounds like bliss, but after the first day it hurts your front side like you wouldn’t believe.
I don’t recall the surgery being horrendously expensive. It’s not like tens of thousands of dollars. I think it was more like $500-$700. I could be off in that estimate. And your situation may not be the same as mine, so your surgery may cost more (I’ve only read about people who broke their tailbones during pregnancy or in an accident needing to have it removed, by the way).
At least chat with a doctor and see if there are payment plans and estimate what the surgery would cost. It can’t hurt to ask.
what a pain in the ass!
I had the periandontal (sp) cyst while on vacation in rural south carolina.
I had to go to a public health care place to have it lanced.
It was an all panel examaning room, with a leather colored table.
they had to cut a slot in my hind end to drain the pus, then pack the hole with gauz so it would heal from the bottom up. then I had to have the gauze removed. I remeber the nurse coming in before they got started and asking me in a southern twang “do you mind if I shave your hiney?”
like I had an opinion about the length of my ass hair, I wasn just like please God make this pain stop.
I think the ultimate problem causing this condition, had something to do with ass pucker, you know when a person gets stressed they tend to clench those muscles back there, then it becomes inflamed then ultimately infected. You know anal .
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