Does pelvic inflammation make your back hurt? 

Question: Does pelvic inflammation make your back hurt? 

Answer from Dr. Daniel Gruber, urogynecologist from Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington D.C., part of John Hopkins medicine.

That’s a difficult question. It could make your back hurt, but the first question is really ‘what is pelvic inflammation?’ This is a very non-specific word that can mean many different things. Inflammation typically means something like swelling or injury. 

And the pelvis is extremely complicated. It includes many things including bones, muscles, nerves, intestines, blood vessels, veins, your bladder, your vagina, and many. So, there could be many different reasons for pelvic inflammation. 

One example happens when the uterus is retroverted, or tilted backwards. Then the uterus can cause a problem, or you could feel it more towards your back (since the uterus is backwards). 

So, for example, this is the pelvis here (see below), and so if the uterus were tilted towards the back, towards the sacrum, then you could sense it more towards the back. 

In those cases, if there’s a painful period or something going on like endometriosis or adenomyosis, then it can be a problem or you can sense it towards the back. 

One of the main causes of back pain in general are issues stress, depression and anxiety. So, for example, when everybody gets nervous, they recognize the feelings of butterflies in their stomach. That’s a very common thing that almost everyone notices. But when you have that that type of anxiety, it’s not coming from your stomach, but that’s where you’re sensing it. A lot of times you feel it in your back as well. The physical pain that you have can be made worse by anxiety, depression, or whatever mental stress that is happening at the time. 

So again, it’s difficult to give a complete answer here. If there’s no one thing causing your pain, it can be many, many, many things, and that’s why it’s so important to get checked out. If you find that your health care provider isn’t really listening to you, then try somebody else. 

And a lot of times relaxation therapy can be helpful. Things like yoga and stretching can help with both the physical and the mental issues.