Question
I am 26 years old and having been having problems with my sciatic nerve forever. Any long trips in the car and my right leg, butt cheek, knee and behind my knee is killing me. When i was pregnant with my 1st daughter I couldn't sit for more than 15 minutes without both of my legs being in pain. Then when I gave birth to my second child I think I may have fractured my tailbone. I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep the Doctors at the hospital never really looked into it but just gave me pain meds and said there wasn't much they could do about it. After several weeks the pain slowly went away and I began to be able to sit without a cushion under me. It's been almost 4yrs since then and i am now in a job where I am sitting for hours on end with out getting up from my desk often at all and I've noticed that my sciatic nerve has been bothering me a lot more often pretty much any car ride that is longer than 30mins and my right leg is hurting and in the last few days my tailbone has been really painful again (without any trauma) I was looking up tailbone pain and found your site. I also saw that it could be both my sciatic nerve and also my SI joint that are having issues, most likely due to sitting on my butt all day. I see that SI joint manipulating can help along with stretching and exercise. I should also let you know that almost everyday and night crack my lower back by laying down on my stomach raise my right knee keeping the left straight I twist my right shoulder up toward the ceiling while pushing my rightside of my pelvis down. This usually relieves most of the pressure however lately it is doing minimal because of the fact the the pain is lower than normal, which I can't really crack on my own. Anyway I am a single mother in school full time and working and don't have a lot of time to get into my chiropractor since he seems to work the same hours as I do. Anyway I was wondering if you could give me some more tips on how I can help to relieve the pain on my own trough stretches and exercise, or any other ideas you may have.
Thanks

Answer
From what you describe, there is dysfunction in on of the SI joints.  Ligaments are "locking", and tightening the joint.  The stretching you are doing is partially relaxing the joint and ligaments.  You may also have a coccyx that is stuck off to one side; this can lead to tightness in the SI joint as well as pain.  The best person for correcting this is your chiropractor.  He may need to pay special attention to the Iliosacral, sacrococcygeal,  and sacro-tuberus ligaments.  A coccyx adjustment may also be in order.