Bruised sit-bone, waaaah!
 

No idea how, but on my last ride I managed to bruise my right sit-bone, it hurts like hell and I can feel a kind of hard-ish blobby thing between the bone and skin which I guess is inflammation. Last time I did this, two or three years ago, I was off the bike for five weeks, a repeat of which I don't need. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this in the shortest time possible? If I ride before it's fully healed (assuming I can stand the pain) do I risk delaying its healing?

You sure that's not a saddle sore?

Yes, the skin is fine, there's only pain when I prod deep enough to touch the bone.

Yes, you do risk delaying the healing, big time.

Same happened to me last May.

I did 2 changes at the same time. After riding on a new 135 mm wide Sp Toupe (fit done by my LBS) for a week, I moved my cleats about 1/4" back, and moved the saddle slightly up and fore. This, after 8 years with the cleats in the old position.
The outcome was the "blobby" thing between right seat bone and skin, which moved side to side under careful probing, and excruciating pain at every attempt to ride. And mildly painful to sit down too although only in certain positions and on certain surfaces.
Rested for 2 weeks, and gave up. Went for my usual 32-mile ride. Pain returned immediately after the ride, and the "blobby" thing was up to pea-size the next morning. This taught me a lesson and scared me as I thought I am developing a tumor.
After some research I established that the "blobby" thing is a piece of bone, wrapped up in some ligament, and it is just a case of ischial tuberosity. Look it up. By the way, a very good X-ray technician should catch it, while an average one might miss it. Same goes for the doctors.
Rested for another 5 weeks, replaced the Toupe with the wider 143 mm version, rode the rollers for 3 30-minute sessions to fine tune the saddle, and returned to everyday riding the next day.

No issues since.

Cheers!

You could take some basic steps to help inflammation.
Apply heat for 20 minutes, then cold for 20 minutes (i.e. ice pack), in sets of about three.
you could/should also go to physiotherapist, where you would receive better advice, as well as ultrasound as needed (an anti-inflammatory, among other things I think), if you don't mind others prodding your (likely nice (from cycling)) butt. They would know what to do.

Good luck!

Hi IK

Interesting - you said it was painful at every attempt to ride, but you went for a 32-mile ride and the pain returned afterwards? (Not trying to sound like a lawyer cross-examining, but wasn't it painful during that ride?)

I ask because when I bruised a sit-bone a couple of years ago, I literally couldn't ride for weeks. This time seems to be different. I have done some riding in the last few days (perhaps unwisely) and an interesting thing happened. For the first five minutes the sitbone was uncomfortable, but gradually the discomfort faded until after half an hour it was unnoticeable (after an hour it came back, but mildly). It returned when I'd been off the bike a few hours (though like yours, only hurts in certain positions) but no worse than before, and does now feel slightly better than when I first bruised it.

Might be that this time the saddle is better (Toupe 143), plus I'm wearing two layers of padding (shorts plus padded tights), but I'm still puzzled why the pain should go away during the ride.

However, I think I'll follow Rosso's advice and see a physio.

Cheers, Bryan

Well, I'm glad I saw a physio, because it turned out not to be ischial tuberosity after all! The perils of self-diagnosis. Turns out it was further forward than that, soreness in the tendon that joins the hamstring to the pelvis, maybe caused by all the lungeing I was doing during my first fencing lesson a couple of weeks ago. The reason it was getting better during the ride was that it was stretching and warming up with blood-flow, which eased the soreness. And I don't have to stay off the bike. Yay!!

BryanW,

I am very glad it worked out OK for you!

In my case, I gave it 2 weeks of rest, after which the pain was gone, and I became brave enough to try a ride.
The pain mildly re-emerged @ about 1.5 hours into the ride, close to the end, when I had to keep my butt off the saddle just to get home. An hour later, it was impossible to sit on a bike saddle.

ik: just went thru a very similar thing most of october/november after 30 miles in one day (had been working up to that in 3-5 mile increments) around the same time i changed saddles and was toying with seatpost height and had switched to longer cranks as well... extreme pain, lots of tenderness all around my right hip and down the quadraceps at the front... was getting better, took a few short rides, pain came back... sat like a lump for several weeks staying off the bike and only now is the pain steadily disappearing... apparently ischial tuberosity and/or iliotibial band injury are VERY common amongst bike riders...