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Jean-Yves Maigne, MD

Welcome on our webpages on coccydynia. I am a MD, certified in Rheumatology, Physical Medicine, Manual Medicine and Human Anatomy, and I devoted my career to the study of spinal pain. I work in Paris (France). I started studying this ailment in 1990, with the idea that its cause should not be very different from that one of low back pain, i.e. that the sacrococcygeal or intercoccygeal discs should be the culprits in many cases. I started with intradiscal anesthetic injections under fluoroscopic control, and, as it worked pretty well (I mean as a diagnostic test), I was satisfied with my find. Coccydynia was for long considered as an hysteric symptom, and here was the evidence that it was not.

After having managed a dozen of patients with these injections, I got another idea, a very simple one. Because the pain was felt in the sitting position, why do not X-ray the patients in this very position? The dynamic (or, as some call them, functional) X-rays of the coccyx were born. Small and great discoveries are always helped by chance, and this was the case here as the first patient was a woman with a luxation, a very stricking abnormality. But the quality of the film was so poor that it was quite impossible to see it, because the distal vertebra which was involved was all black, even on the lightbox and not discernable. I was nearly to think that the technique was not interesting, and on the way to give up, as a colleague of mine (Stéphane Guedj, MD), pointing his finger on the luxation, told me that something was going on there. And in fact, this discovery was the starting point of all my studies on coccydynia.

A series of 27 cases was presented at a national congress of rheumatology in Paris in 1991, with the first description of the intermittent luxation of the coccyx as a cause of coccydynia. The prejudice was strong, as, even with such demonstrating, self evident cases of luxations with positive anesthetic blocks, the chairman, a well known medical personality, stood up and told me that he could not understand the rational of my research, as these patients were all hysterics... The same study was submitted to a French journal in 1991. They were two reviewers. The first was interested, but the second wrote down that the technique was not clever, the conclusions not relevant, the study not interesting and, above all, the paper not worthy of a publication in "such a well reknown journal as the Revue du Rhumatisme"... The article was eventually published the year after, and the reputation of the journal was not spoilt.

During the following years, I worked hard, studying the patients, building up a control group to assess the normal coccygeal mobility, looking for specific clinical symptoms, assessing the various treatments and publishing the results of my research in the best international journals. These pages are intended to present a summary of my research, an online library of dynamic X-rays of the coccyx and an anatomic section.

My Major Scientific Publications on Coccydynia

Read that first: a general review about management of common coccydynia

I have posted online a collection of X-ray films on various diagnoses, plus a technical section on how to take and to read the dynamic films.

Do not miss the anatomic section. You will not find this material somewhere else! A comprehensive review of the anatomy of the coccyx. Click here.

I work in Paris (France) both in a private practice and a public hospital (Hôtel-Dieu de Paris). You can get more information on my research by reading these two interviews: Maitrise Orthopédique (in English) and the website of the French chiropractors (in French). You can contact me at jean-yves.maigne (at) wanadoo.fr or through our directory.

These pages are designed for radiologists, physiatrists and orthopaedic surgeons, who have to manage these patients. Chiropractors, osteopaths and physiotherapists are also welcome. Patients with coccydynia may also find an interest in this section, but they are warned that nothing can replace a medical consultation!

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