Introduction
Pain when sitting is an extremely common phenomenon affecting patients of all ages. Since the symptom can occur in many different parts of the body, it is a particularly complex disease with many different forms and possible causes. If you suffer from pain while sitting, it can be helpful to first consciously consider where exactly this pain occurs, whether it occurs only while sitting or also in other body positions and whether the pain is associated with other accompanying symptoms. Also the consideration of which (often unconscious) measures lead to an alleviation of the pain can possibly help the consulted physician to find the cause later on.
Possible causes
The causes of pain while sitting can be very diverse, so that it can occur in different parts of the body. Basically, a distinction can be made between orthopaedic-occupational medical, gynaecological-urological and internal-visceral surgical causes. The first group of possible causes includes overloading or incorrect loading of the ischium or coccyx due to sitting for too long or inappropriately, e.g. in the office.
Other possible triggers from the orthopedic field are herniated discs or joint wear. The gynaecological and urological group mainly includes inflammatory diseases of the fallopian tubes or ovaries or the testicles and the urinary tract (especially cystitis). The internal-visceral surgical causes include mainly inguinal hernia and hemorrhoids.
Associated symptoms
Depending on the localization and trigger, the pain can be accompanied by other symptoms. These can occur parallel to the pain or with a time lag and are often very helpful in identifying the cause. Due to the immense range of the clinical picture of “pain when sitting”, this section will describe only a few important accompanying symptoms to illustrate what significance these can have for finding a diagnosis.
For back pain, a herniated disc is one of the most important possible causes. It is often difficult to distinguish it from spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal) on the basis of the symptoms. In this case, the question of whether the pain is reduced when bending forward can help.
This would rather speak for spinal canal stenosis, which requires a different therapy than the herniated disc. If the pain occurs when sitting in the abdomen, cystitis is one of the most common causes. The suspicion of the presence of such a disease is confirmed if the abdominal pain when sitting is accompanied by burning or itching when urinating or even blood in the urine.