Beth posted:Hi, my son is 15 and was just diagnosed early spring with pars defect bilaterally in the L4 and on one side in the L5. He did not play school ball or summer ball. Towards the end of the summer season he did feel good enough to swing a bat and field some balls with minimal pain. He did nine weeks of physical therapy and was then released. Signed him up for fall ball and he began to practice and within three weeks he complained of being in severe pain again. Therapist thinks it’s his SI joint and not his spine issue. Does anybody have any experience with this and could all of this be associated with growing pains? We have been to a few different doctors and one thinks the pars defect was a very old injury so I’m wondering if the SI joint was the problem the whole time. Hard to get concrete answers :/
Hi Beth, and welcome to the site. My son damaged his SI joint when he was about 10 years old but we didn't know it at the time. A couple years later, after complaining of pain and stiffness in the area, we took him to a doctor and he diagnosed it as an SI issue and prescribed PT to correct alignment and strengthen the surrounding muscles. He went through two separate cycles of that, and frankly didn't do what he was supposed to do, and still has issues with it to this day. Mostly hamstring stiffness but not severe pain. The joint used to get out of alignment and he/we could actually "pop" it back into place but that isn't really the case any longer. He's now 17 and the muscles surrounding it are much larger and stronger so I'm guessing that's why it doesn't move much anymore. It doesn't hinder his athletic performance unless he doesn't warm up properly and then it's mostly just stiffness. The moral of the story is to do EXACTLY what the physical therapy program prescribes. Good luck!