My Twisted Sacroiliac Joint Injury and Recovery Story

I’m usually fit and healthy. At the time of this injury I exercised most days, ate a wholefood plant-based diet, didn’t drink alcohol at all, and rarely got ill. So when I ended up barely able to walk, sit, or get dressed for almost six weeks, it genuinely floored me – both literally and in terms of how unprepared I felt for it.

This is the full story of my twisted sacroiliac joint injury – what I think caused it, my very different experiences with a chiropractor and an osteopath, and how long it actually took to recover. I’m sharing this from my diary entries at the time, with a bit of perspective added now I’m years on the other side of it.

How it happened

We were on holiday and the walk from the beach back to the hotel involved several flights of steep, rocky cliff-style steps. Normally not a problem for me, but my three year old kept stopping and begging to be carried, so I gave in to save the daily arguments. I was also carrying a cross-body bag loaded with water bottles, books, spare clothes and sun cream every single day. Not light.

After a couple of days I could feel the strain building as I went up that mountain of steps, but I kept telling myself “just make it to the top.” I also gave my husband a piggyback across the beach at one point, and we waded through a fairly wide river running down to the sea. Whether it was one of these things, all of them, or something else entirely, I genuinely don’t know.

By the Thursday my back had started to really hurt. At first I put it down to my period – I get some aches around that time normally, so I assumed this was just a bad month that would pass in a day or two. It didn’t. It got worse and worse. I couldn’t sleep because every movement was agony. I couldn’t bend down or get dressed without help.

A week later I was in real trouble. I couldn’t sit down, couldn’t bend or twist, couldn’t get in or out of the car. My muscles kept spasming and locking me into positions of pain for a minute or more at a time. The pain was concentrated in my lower back, particularly on the left side around the bony point you can feel either side of the base of the spine.

I tried to go for a swim since I couldn’t manage my usual run, but only made it four laps before the movement became too painful. I couldn’t exercise at the gym or do anything at home either. This clearly wasn’t going to sort itself out on its own, and it was time to get some help.

Seeing a chiropractor

I’d never had a back injury before, so I had no idea where to start. I searched for lower back pain treatment locally and the first result was a chiropractor and sports massage clinic whose website described my exact symptoms. Perfect, I thought – they must be exactly who I need. I couldn’t get hold of them, so I called a couple of other local chiropractors and explained what I thought I’d done – strained my back on holiday from hundreds of steep steps every day, carrying a heavy bag and a heavy, wriggly three year old.

One got back to me and could see me that same day. He said it was an injury he saw all the time and felt confident he could help. Success, I thought.

This is just my personal experience and I don’t want to put anyone off seeing a chiropractor, because for many people it works really well. But for me, the appointment didn’t sit right from fairly early on.

I don’t really understand chiropractics and I won’t pretend I do – I’d never had a back issue before. But I know I’m usually fit and healthy, I eat very well, and at the time I exercised three to five times a week across swimming, running, dance, and yoga. I’m pretty flexible and in good shape generally. To me this felt like a random injury with an obvious cause, not a sign of some underlying long-term problem.

Rather than focusing on the injury itself, he looked at my spine and said it was straighter at the bottom than it should be, and seemed surprised I hadn’t had pain before given that. He said my muscles were tightening to compensate for this, and that was the pain I was feeling.

I’d written on the intake form that I’d never had any injuries before, and he seemed to dismiss this slightly. He said that as he straightened my spine over a course of 12 sessions, any old injuries I’d had would likely resurface – something like “so any injuries you haven’t told me about on this form will hurt again.” It felt like he was assuming I’d been less than honest on the form, which put me off. Why would I lie about that? I’ve twisted the odd ankle and once cut my toe badly enough for butterfly stitches, but I’d never sprained or broken anything before.

He also had me do a test to see which way my body leaned. With the injury, it leaned to the left, and he seemed to treat this as my natural posture rather than something caused by the current pain. For context, my sports massage therapist had previously told me my body naturally leans slightly to the right, which she put down to always carrying my children on that side. So the leftward lean during this appointment was almost certainly down to the injury itself, not how my body normally sits.

He also took some photos – asking me to stand straight, breathe in, breathe out, then “slump.” So I slumped, dropping my head and shoulders with a bit of exaggeration as instructed. He then showed me the photos as evidence of my poor posture and “dodgy” back. I pointed out that he’d told me to slump – that’s not how I’d normally stand at all. He clarified he’d meant something more like “relax.”

The treatment itself involved him having me hug myself while he lifted me, supposedly to untwist my spine. The first lift was fine, the second was genuinely painful, the third uncomfortable. At one point he also talked to a point at the back of my head, asking it whether my body was leaning left, while flicking at my shoulder, back, and possibly my leg.

He quoted £400 for a course of 12 sessions over six weeks, plus £70 for that initial session. At one point during the appointment he also asked whether my husband – who’d driven me there and shaken his hand in the waiting room – was actually my son. I genuinely thought I’d misheard at first. I wish I’d said “no, that’s my older husband,” but I just said no, that’s my husband, and moved on.

By the end I just didn’t feel like the injury I’d come in with was being addressed. It felt like a much bigger, ongoing treatment plan was being proposed for what I believed was a one-off injury with an obvious cause, and I left without booking further sessions.

Seeing an osteopath

Not sure what to do next, I called my mum, who recommended the osteopath she and my grandad had seen for years. I got a same-day appointment – the receptionist could tell from my voice I was in proper pain.

After the chiropractor experience, I’d started doing a lot more research of my own. By this point I’d come across the term “twisted sacroiliac joint” and the more I read, the more it matched everything I was feeling. I decided not to mention any of this to the osteopath – I wanted to see whether he’d identify it himself without me leading him there.

I didn’t mention what the chiropractor had said either. I just explained what had happened on holiday and the symptoms I was having. He examined my back, had me lie on each side, and worked on the area. At one point he had me hold my arms in a specific position and pulled, which produced an audible crack.

Afterwards he told me I’d twisted my sacroiliac joint on the left side – exactly where the pain was centred, and exactly what I’d suspected from my own research. When I asked if he thought the holiday activities had caused it, he said yes, straight away, without me having suggested that to him.

It felt like a much better fit for what I was experiencing – both because he’d reached the same conclusion I had independently, and because his response felt like it was actually about my injury rather than a wider treatment plan. He booked me in for a follow-up and gave me some gentle exercises to do at home.

Four weeks in

By four weeks I still hadn’t fully recovered, which genuinely surprised the osteopath too. At my second appointment he changed his approach completely – the first session’s firmer manipulation might have caused my muscles to clamp up defensively rather than release, so this time he used a much gentler technique.

Five days after that second appointment I still had pain around my left lower back. By this point I’d read that a twisted sacroiliac joint typically takes around six weeks to heal on its own, and I started to wonder whether the best thing I could do was simply leave it alone – stop manipulating or poking at it and just let my body do its own healing. I cancelled my next appointment to see whether time and patience would do more than further treatment.

It was incredibly frustrating not being able to exercise normally – I usually ran, swam, danced, and did yoga classes most weeks. At this point all I could manage was walking, and even that wasn’t comfortable. I tried walking uphill on a treadmill a few times a week just to feel like I was doing something.

I couldn’t bend down at all. Normally in yoga I can bend over with straight legs and put my hands flat on the floor – now I could barely get my hands past my knees. Child’s pose was completely out of reach. Sneezing or coughing produced the sharpest pain of the whole experience – the sudden jolt of movement caused such a shock of pain in my back that I actually leapt backwards into a stranger once.

Six weeks – finally better

At exactly six weeks – like clockwork, just as everything I’d researched had said – it was completely back to normal. Around week four it had started improving quickly. I got a bit overexcited and tried a gentle jog, which felt like grinding bones, so I gave it another week before trying again – and that time I could run, swim, and do yoga without pain.

Everything I’d read while researching said a twisted sacroiliac joint typically takes around 4-6 weeks to heal, and that’s exactly what happened for me. Whether the chiropractor or osteopath made any real difference, or whether it would have healed in the same timeframe regardless, I honestly don’t know.

What I learned

A few things stuck with me from this experience that I still think about now.

Not everyone at the gym is being lazy. I’ll admit I used to make quiet judgements about people who seemed to be doing very little at the gym. During recovery, all I could manage was walking uphill on a treadmill, and I felt incredibly self-conscious doing even that. You genuinely never know what someone else is dealing with.

I don’t take my health for granted – but injuries can still happen. At the time I was being especially careful with my health – I didn’t drink alcohol at all, ate a wholefood plant-based diet, exercised most days, and drank distilled water. None of that protects you from a muscular or joint injury. Being generally healthy can help with recovery, but it doesn’t make you immune to things like this. These days I’ll have the odd drink now and then, usually around Christmas or in summer here in Cornwall, but it’s rarely more than that.

Life is genuinely tough for people with chronic back pain. Six weeks of not being able to bend, sneeze without yelping, pick things up off the floor, or wash my hair properly gave me a much deeper appreciation for what life must be like for people who deal with this every single day, indefinitely. It changed how I think about chronic pain entirely.

I really love exercise. I’d never been completely sure whether I loved exercising or just did it because I knew it was good for me. Six weeks of barely being able to move made it very clear – I missed it enormously and felt completely disconnected from myself without it.

Time is often the biggest healer. I’m not sure either the chiropractor or osteopath sped up my recovery in the end – it’s entirely possible this would have healed in the same six weeks regardless. If something similar happens again, I think I’d be more inclined to trust that my body, which is usually healthy and resilient, needs time rather than rushing into expensive treatment plans straight away. That said, getting things checked out is still sensible if you’re at all unsure what’s going on, particularly if pain is severe or doesn’t start improving.

How I feel about it now

It’s now been several years since this happened and, thankfully, it has never come back. No twinges, no recurrence, nothing. I still do all the things I did before – running, walking, swimming, paddleboarding, yoga, kettlebells – without any issue.

If you’re going through something similar right now, I really do feel for you. Those six weeks were some of the most frustrating of my life, mainly because everything felt completely out of my control. If it’s any reassurance, for me it really was a temporary injury rather than anything ongoing, and the natural remedies for back pain approach alongside rest and gentle movement is generally a good place to start, alongside professional advice if the pain is severe or persistent.

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This is a personal account of my own experience and is not intended as medical advice. If you’re dealing with back pain, particularly if it’s severe, doesn’t improve, or you’re unsure what’s causing it, please see a doctor or qualified healthcare professional.