Have you fallen on your buttocks before? Do you have pain in your tailbone when you sit for prolonged periods of time? Do you have any burning/radiating pain into your legs? Is your neck or shoulder tight and no stretches can help release the tension? Have you tried everything else and gotten no relief?

The likely culprit is your tailbone or medically known as your coccyx. What is it exactly? The last portion of the spine is known as the coccyx. It is the last 4 bones of the spine.

What is the importance of the coccyx?

The major importance of the tailbone is that it is the anchor of the spinal cord. The filum terminale is the last strand of the spinal cord that attaches to the coccyx. It helps suspend the spinal cord in the proper position so that it can relieve tension and apply efficient movement patterns. So this means that if you are having that burning/radiating pain anywhere in your body, it can be coming from neural tension due to an improperly positioned coccyx. This neural tension can even contribute to limited mobility of your shoulder and your neck.

Neural tension isn’t the only issue that the coccyx is responsible for. There are also several other key structures that attach to the coccyx including pelvic floor musculature, glute muscles, and the ligaments (sacrotuberous and sacrospinous) of the pelvis. This helps create stability of the pelvis and the sacrum, or helps create normal mobility of the lower back and buttocks. Any of these things can be contributing to lower back pain or pain in your glute muscles. For this reason, we call the coccyx a keystone structure.

So…do you have lower back pain? Do you have radiating or burning pain? Are your neck and shoulder stiff? Has anyone worked on your coccyx or tailbone? This could be the reason that you aren’t back to 100% yet.

Call today to talk to one of our experts so that you can get back to your normal active lifestyle WITHOUT PAIN. We look forward to helping you.