Here is the transcript from the video on Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and tailbone pain. The actual Video is at the bottom of this article.
Let’s talk briefly about EDS (or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) and EDS as a cause of coccyx pain or tailbone pain or coccydynia.
I’m Dr. Patrick Foye. I’m an M.D. (or medical doctor) and Director of the Coccyx Pain Center here in the United States, online at www.TailboneDoctor.com.
EDS is a condition where it’s a connective tissue disorder.
And it results in increased joint laxity, meaning looseness of the joints… that the joints are not as stiff or well supported as they normally should be.
And that causes increased mobility or movement of the joints.
Now, the joints then can become unstable or hyper-mobile, meaning that they move too much.
Now, coccyx pain is a condition down at the bottom of the spine.
So, here’s an anatomic model of the spine showing the lumbar spine and then the sacrum and then down at the lowest tip of the spine is the coccyx or tailbone.
And the tailbone is supposed to have a little bit of movement but not too much.
And the most common cause of tailbone pain or coccyx pain overall is patients that have hyper-mobility.
The ligaments of the coccyx are relatively thin. They’re not very strong. And they can become loose over time or as a result of trauma.
And that can happen in all of us, even people without EDS.
So, the number one cause of coccyx pain overall in patients is hyper mobility… that there’s dynamic instability (there’s excessive movement at the tailbone)… that when you go to sit and if you and your tailbone is supposed to flex forward just a little… but it flexes forward too much and there’s excessive movement and pain associated with that.
So, given that, overall, hypermobility is the number one cause of coccyx pain… and given that EDS causes hypermobility of joints in general… it’s no surprise that people with EDS may run into problems with hypermobility at the tailbone.
The way to diagnose that is by doing sitting-versus-standing x-rays.
That way the x-rays can be done while you’re standing but also while you’re sitting and putting your body weight onto the tailbone… so sitting leaning part way back the x-rays can be done in that position as well.
And we can compare the position and the angle of the coccyx while you’re sitting compared with while you’re standing.
And that’s the way we diagnose hypermobility at the coccyx.
The problem though is that many radiology centers have never heard of doing the sitting-versus-standing coccyx x-rays or they don’t have experience or expertise in doing them.
So, admittedly, that is one potential challenge.
But that’s a little bit of information about EDS and coccyx pain or coccydynia and hypermobility and sit-stand x-rays.
Hopefully you found that helpful.
If you are interested in more information about tailbone pain, certainly you can find my book on Amazon, which is called “Tailbone Pain Relief Now!”
And if you’re interested in more information you can also go to my website www.TailboneDoctor.com.
And you can if you’re interested in seeing me in-person you can also go to the www.TailboneDoctor.com website and there’ll be information on that there.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
(Scroll down for Dr. Foye’s VIDEO on this topic. Here is the typed transcript from the video.)
Okay, let’s talk for a minute or two about coccyx pain or tailbone pain on airplanes.
I’m Dr. Patrick Foye. I’m an M.D. (or medical doctor) and Director of the Coccyx Pain Center here in the United States, online at www.TailboneDoctor.com.
Many, many, many patients of mine when they come to see me, they tell me that one of the things that is most painful for them is flying on airplanes with tailbone pain.
And it’s a significant problem because on an airplane you don’t have a lot of wiggle room.
You don’t have the ability to lean to the right or lean to the left or lean forward which are positions that often will unload some of the weight bearing on the coccyx.
You have to sit for an extended period of time.
You can’t just get up whenever you want to because the captain says the flight the seat belts have to stay on at times.
In fact I have a lot of patients who are airline pilots or flight attendants from planes and it’s a significant challenge for those people.
So what can you do when it comes to flying with tailbone pain one thing you can do is remember of course to bring your cushion.
Put it on your packing list.
Make sure you bring it along with you.
Many cushions… these are the wedge cushions they’re shaped a bit like a wedge here. and they have kind of a wedge shaped cut out here and the tailbone hovers over that empty spot on the wedge.
Many of them have a handle you can carry it along with you.
you can slide the handle over the edge of your suitcase handle… pull out telescoping all of that and remember to bring your cushion.
also remember not to forget your cushion when you’re exiting the plane.
I have many, many patients who fly in to see me and they tell me that when they are getting off the plane with all of grabbing their bags and their papers and all of this kind of thing that they left their cushions.
So do whatever it takes.
These tend to be dark in color just like the seats of the plane.
So you may want to tie a red ribbon on it.
Or set your timer on your watch or your phone to set a reminder at landing time to remind you to grab your cushion when you’re done.
And even I would say in terms of using the cushion even if your tailbone pain is doing relatively better (if let’s say you were someone who received treatment for tailbone pain and maybe you haven’t had any symptoms for a few months or six months or even a year)… if you’re taking a really long flight you may still want to bring your cushion along. Because that may make the difference between whether you have an exacerbation if there’s a lot of turbulence or if the flight goes longer than expected or if the chair is particularly uncomfortable.
So those are a few a few thoughts on airline flights and tailbone pain.
If you want more information certainly on amazon you can grab a copy of my book “Tailbone Pain Relief Now!’.
Or if you’re interested in coming to see me in person you can find all the information on that on my website which is www.TailboneDoctor.com.
Airplane Flights and Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Pilots, Flight Attendants, Patrick Foye MD
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
(Scroll down for Dr. Foye’s VIDEO on this topic. Here is the typed transcript from the video.)
This is a short explanation about how a straight coccyx can be a cause of coccyx pain.
I’m Dr. Patrick Foye. I’m an M.D. (or medical doctor) and Director of the Coccyx Pain Center here in the United States, online at www.TailboneDoctor.com.
And this is a explanation for why a straight coccyx can be a source of coccyx pain.
The coccyx is the lower part of the spine.
So lumbar spine would be above and then at the back of the pelvis is the sacrum and coccyx.
And you can see that normally it has this gradual forward curve to the sacrum and coccyx.
And one of the nice things that that does is that the normal gradual forward curve of the sacrament coccyx means that the coccyx (the lowest part of the spine) is sort of tucked into the pelvis.
So that when you go to sit the fact that it’s curved forward means that the coccyx does not bear a lot of weight… that the coccyx doesn’t immediately touch the sitting surface that you’re sitting on.
However, you can see that if, instead of curved forward, if the coccyx was straight down… like instead of curve forward like my finger is now here at the coccyx… if it was pointing straight down… then it does not have quite as much clearance.
So it’s going to hit the chair a little bit sooner.
And then it’s going by hitting the chair. It’s going to cause increased pressure at that area.
And if my finger is the coccyx and now it’s hitting the chair as it sits as you sit down.
Number one it can cause pain locally at that lower tip. Sometimes there’s also a bone spur there which can be another source of pain.
But, also, from hitting straight down it transmits some of those mechanical forces upwards through the coccyx and can sort of be like jamming the joint up above.
So just like the same way that if you ever caught a basketball or a football and it kind of hits straight onto your finger and kind of jams the finger or can even push it into extension sometimes. So, it can be painful at the joint.
So that’s the general story for how a coccyx that is too straight uh can sometimes be a source of tailbone pain
For more information you can always get a copy of my book on Amazon.
Or if you want to be evaluated by me in person you can go to my website which is www.TailboneDoctor.com to either find more information or find out about coming to see me in person.
I hope that’s helpful and I’m wishing you all the best.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
Sitting on a COUCHES can cause or worsen coccyx pain (tailbone pain, coccydynia). For many people with tailbone pain, sitting on a hard chair may be more comfortable than sitting on a soft COUCH or sofa.
Hundreds of patients with tailbone pain have told me how much they hate sitting on couches. Below, I explain why this happens.
The VIDEO is at the bottom of the page.
Here is the transcript from the video:
I’m Dr. Patrick Foye, M.D. and this is just a short explanation for why many people with tailbone pain have pain when they’re sitting specifically on couches or soft surfaces like a couch.
Many people think well, a couch is comfortable a couch is soft.
That should be easy and should be a great place for someone with tailbone pain to sit.
However very frequently the opposite is true.
This is an anatomic model showing the pelvis and at the back of the pelvis is the sacrum and right down here is the coccyx or tailbone and over here where my fingers are pointing now those are the other sit bones referred to as the ischial bones so right down at the bottom here.
And the thing is that when somebody is sitting on a hard surface what they can do is they can shift their body weight somewhat from one side to the other or they can sit leaning forward all of those things take pressure off of the tailbone at the midline.
So sitting on a hard surface might not be so bad for many people with tailbone pain however if we use this soft surface here to simulate sitting on a couch.
You can see that when you sit on a couch you sink down into it and part of that soft couch surface is not so soft now when it’s hitting the tailbone if you have somebody with tailbone pain.
So you can see how in that situation for many people sitting on a hard surface might actually be better for their tailbone pain than sitting on a soft surface where they can’t get sort of the relief by putting the pressure onto some of the other areas.
So we see this very very commonly.
I’m the Director and Founder of the Coccyx Pain Center (or Tailbone Pain Center) here in the United States.
You can find more information online at www.TailboneDoctor.com or you can grab a copy of my book on tailbone pain all about causes and treatments and all of that.
I hope that’s a helpful explanation for you about tailbone pain while sitting on couches.
Here is the VIDEO:
VIDEO: Tailbone Pain while sitting on COUCHES. Coccyx Pain when you Sit on a COUCH.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
Here is the screen-capture from the video:
Tailbone Pain Sitting on Couches, Coccyx pain when you sit on a couch or sofa, coccydynia, Patrick Foye MD
(Usual disclaimer: This is intended as helpful education for those with tailbone pain, but this is not individual medical advice and does not establish any doctor-patient relationship.)
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
This eBook on Tailbone Pain is Free on Amazon worldwide a few times per year.
“Tailbone Pain Relief Now! Causes and Treatments for Your Sore or Injured Coccyx” by Patrick M. Foye, M.D., Director of the Coccyx Pain Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
Learn all about how to find answers and relief for your Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Coccydynia.
If you have been told the date that the book will be FREE and you have been directed here then this webpage explains how to get the book for free from Amazon on the date that you have been told will be free.
First, use the links below to go to the Amazon webpage for this book.
Then… Click on “see all formats” (as shown by the red arrow in the image below) and then choose the e-book / Kindle version, which is FREE all day. You do not need a Kindle to get this free book… you just need an Amazon account, which is free. You can download the ebook to your laptop, desktop computer, iPad, e-reader, Kindle, etc.
Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Free-Book, June 1, 2021, coccydynia, by Patrick Foye MD
Below is a List of Amazon Links Worldwide to get the Book “Tailbone Pain Relief Now!” The book is filled with useful information about coccyx pain (tailbone pain), including causes, tests, and treatments. You can use the Amazon website specific to your part of the world.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
Tailbone Pain Book, for Coccyx Pain, Coccydynia, by Patrick Foye MD
I have thousands of patients with coccyx pain (tailbone pain, coccydynia). Some of them had their tailbone pain caused by, or worsened by, activities such as snow-boarding, skate-boarding, skiing, etc.
Some people with tailbone pain want to continue doing activities like snowboarding, skateboarding, etc.
Some of them tell me that they like the way that “Ass Armor” shorts protects their coccyx from further injury/pain if they fall.
So I am sharing this here in case it may help others. (Note: I do not endorse any particular commercial product and I do not get any financial benefit or compensation from them for sharing this.)
Ass Armor, shorts to protect from tailbone pain, coccyx pain, coccydyniaAss Armor, shorts to protect from tailbone pain, coccyx pain, on Amazon
To find this, go to Amazon and search for “Ass Armor” shorts.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
This eBook on Tailbone Pain is Free on Amazon worldwide: June 1, 2021, Pacific Time.
“Tailbone Pain Relief Now! Causes and Treatments for Your Sore or Injured Coccyx” by Patrick M. Foye, M.D., Director of the Coccyx Pain Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
Learn all about how to find answers and relief for your Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Coccydynia.
Click on “see all formats” (as shown by the red arrow in the image below) and then choose the e-book / Kindle version, which is FREE all day. You do not need a Kindle to get this free book… you just need an Amazon account, which is free. You can download the ebook to your laptop, desktop computer, iPad, e-reader, Kindle, etc.
Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Free-Book, June 1, 2021, coccydynia, by Patrick Foye MD
Below is a List of Amazon Links Worldwide to get the Book “Tailbone Pain Relief Now!” The book is filled with useful information about coccyx pain (tailbone pain), including causes, tests, and treatments. You can use the Amazon website specific to your part of the world.
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
Wedge cushions have the hole or cut-out at the edge. It is usually a wedge-shaped cut-out (like a small, triangle-shaped slice removed from a a square pie).
The goal is for the painful tailbone to ‘hover’ over the cut-out, so that you are not putting as much of your body weight onto the tailbone. Less coccyx weight-bearing results in less coccyx pain.
The wedge cushions often also have a slight incline that tends to have the patient sit leaning forwards, which also takes some pressure off the coccyx.
I did a research study on this topic in 2009, assessing whether patients with tailbone pain preferred sitting on wedge cushions versus donut cushions.
Many patients with tailbone pain preferred neither cushion. But among patients who had a preference, they were ~ 5 times more likely to prefer wedge rather than donut cushions.
So, for patients who have not yet tried either cushion, it probably makes sense to start by trying a wedge cushion.
But each patient needs to find the cushion that works best for them.
Tailbone Pain Tip 11, Coccyx WEDGE CUSHIONS are usually better than doughnut cushions, for Coccyx Pain, CoccydyniaTailbone Wedge Cushion, for coccyx pain, tailbone pain, coccydynia Tailbone Donut Cushion, for coccyx pain, tailbone pain, coccydynia Coccyx Wedge Cushions for Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, coccydynia
Video on Cushions for Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Coccydynia
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
BUT… it is important to SCREEN for cancer since CHORDOMA tends to occur at the sacrum/coccyx and unfortunately is often FATAL within a few years of diagnosis.
MRI needs to be ordered properly and done properly to assess for this.
MRI is especially important if the coccyx pain is not responding to the usual treatments.
There are also other pelvic cancers to screen for, including cancers of the rectum / colon, uterus, ovaries, cervix, bladder, prostate, etc. Those cancers often involve assessment by specialists such as Gynecologists, Gastroenterologists, Colorectal specialists, Urologists, etc.
Tailbone Pain Tip 10, Tailbone CANCER can be Deadly, Chordoma, Tailbone Pain, Coccyx Pain, Coccydynia
COME FOR RELIEF: For more information on coccyx pain, or to be evaluated in-person by Dr. Foye’s Coccyx Pain Center in the United States, go to: www.TailboneDoctor.com
– Patrick Foye, M.D., Director of the Tailbone Pain Center, New Jersey, United States.
