Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Misalignment related to AS

If your SI is angling out to the side, I don't know what to do. If the SI is rotating backward or forward, I know how to fix that.

To check yourself:
1) Lay on your back with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent.
2) Lift your butt in the air and drop it back down.
3) Extend your legs.
4) Put your ankles next to each other so that the bumps on the inside of your ankles are touching each other, but don't try to line them up. Just let them go where they go.
5) Lift your head a bit and note whether the ankle bumps line up or not. Is one leg shorter than the other?
6)Sit up while watching your ankle bumps (you need to have pretty good core strength to do this). Is one moving with respect to the other? If so, you are misaligned.

In the case that the left leg started out shorter and moved with respect to the right bump (reverse directions left/right for the other way around):

Method 1: Lay on your back with the left leg extended and the right leg bent up toward your chest. Wrap your arms around the right leg. Get some form of resistance to hold the left leg down-have a young child sit on the ankle, have a partner push it down, slide it under a piece of furniture. Do the following 10x-While pushing up with the left leg, try to push the right leg into your hands. This will usually realign, but sometimes I have to do it more than once.

Method 2: Lie on your back by a doorway. Bend your left leg so that the knee and hip are at a 90 degree angle and your left foot is on the wall by the door opening. Your right leg should be straight and extending through the open door. Do the following 10x-Push against the wall with your left foot.

Method 3: Lie on your back with both knees bent. Put something firm and about a foot long between your knees. Push your knees inward against the resistance of the thing between them. For this one, you will hear a pop as your hips go back into alignment.

I hope this helps, but it might be good to try a different chiro or PT. These three methods were taught to me by three different PTs at different times, so I know there are PTs out there who can teach this. It's nice to have someone show you. Sue22 also has another method involving standing in a doorway, but I'll let explain that one.

Karen

My Chiro says that I'm always rotated rearward and down on my right side. I think its always my left leg thats longer. I do know the one where you put a nerf ball or something between your knees and push inward. Only problem is I developed this terrible pain in my left groin when I try to push my knees together.

for me, if the chiro or PT would try to realign me, my body would go back where it wanted shortly after the visit. maybe that's just me.

but if i do some isometrics, like gently squeezing my knees together or pushing my knees into my hands while laying on the floor, or sitting with my legs in front of me (flexing my feet and bending gently at the waist in various directions until i can feel a little pain in my spine, holding it, and moving to another spot), or standing a door frame and pushing with my foot up into the frame with my back against the opposite side.....all those types of isometrics will help get me in if i'm a little out.

if i'm really out, it might take a day or two of bad inflammation and muscle spasms before i can realign myself.

to keep myself from going out, i try to do my core strengthening as much as possible. for me, i do think its a lose ligament, so my muscles have to take over for my ligament. its usually the right side that is a problem, and its always the right side that goes when it goes big time.

i also have the AM stiffness, joint pains, tendon and ligament problems, muscle spasms. things that most people here can relate to.

but, i haven't been diagnosed with AS or any kind of spondyloarthropathy or any kind of arthritis or actually anything underlying at all.

so yes, i have the same symptoms, but don't know what is causing them.
and no doctor seems to be able to figure it out either.

sue

karen,

looks like we were posting at the same time.
but you were more thorough.
i sort of explained the doorway, but i'll see if that needs further explaining.

i never knew how to do the checking by leg lengths, i only "check" by pain.

and other than the squeezing the knees and doing the doorway push, i don't think i was taught the other two methods you described well enough.

so your post helped me as well.

the frustrating thing is when i can't put myself in with all these methods.
like last week, i tried the ones you said, the best i could on my own, nothing. tried standing in the doorway. nothing. two days later, i sit in the recliner, the opposite way i was sitting when it went bad, and i felt something give (in a good way). then i sat in the recliner and started stretching my legs out and found that if i flexed my feet (toes pointing back at me) and bent the spine a little, it fixed me. weird, but i think its because it was out higher up or maybe it was even the lower spine that inserts into the SI that was out. anyway, its my new own way of doing it. it worked, or maybe it was just time for it to shift. who knows.

sue

Curt, I am rotated the same way as you are. I do an exercise that help with this pain. Lay on the left edge of your bed. You'll need to be on your left side (the side opposite of your pain) and scoot so that the front of your body is on the very edge.
Your right leg should be hanging over the side of the bed with your leg bent.
Your left leg will be straight on edge of the bed.
Your shoulders should be turned towards laying flat.

You may have been in this position during PT--I have had many people show me this.

This is an awkward position. Your body should be twisted. Your legs sideways, but your shoulders flat on your back. You should feel a stretch in your muscles surrounding the outside of your right hip.
If you feel pain stop. I always get a satisfying stretch---this is a hard feeling to get without this position.

You may lay like this for long periods of time... while watching TV etc. Pay attention to how your body feels with it.

Every time I've had a PT manipulate me it's not good. The ones I've seen don't know what they're doing and I just have to sort of fake feeling better to get them to leave me alone. I'm not saying that PTs can't manipulate well, but I think I'm a very unique case. It takes more advanced techniques than the PTs I've seen know.

This may not align you, but it may add relief and allow your manipulations to maintain form.

alysen,

wow, lots of new alignment ideas. for when i can't seem to get it back in so easily. i love when its a simple squeezing of the knees and it goes crack crack crack, but when that doesn't fix it, it's always more of a struggle.

you explained it very well, i think i'll try this.

it sounds a little like the laying on the floor spinal twist i learned in yoga,
and my body really likes that one.

sue

Gosh, there are lots of different ideas here for realigning my own SI. I have a couple of new tricks to try next time it happens.

I can't always get it back in alignment myself; sometimes I need someone else to do it for me. Also, even when I do get it back myself, I like to have someone else check what I did. When I realign myself, I'm sometimes a little bit off. The PT I'm currently seeing will find and correct even tiny deviations.

I also find that core strengthening is essential for maintaining alignment. My muscles have to be strong enough to hold me in place through all of the twisting and jarring of everyday life. I'm very faithful about my core strengthening exercises.

When the PT realigned and taped me last year, she told me it was important that I be in alignment when I do my exercises because one of the goals of the exercises was to train my body to know what correct alignment is and to learn to work with it. If I wasn't aligned when I did my exercises, then my body would think it was okay to be moving that way. At least that's what she thought; I was skeptical of the whole thing, but the results convinced me in the end.

This is also another one of those areas where everyone is different and we each have to experiment to find what works for us. The good thing about kickas is that we have many people sharing their experiences, giving us lots of options to try. If one option isn't right for us, then there is something else to try.

Karen