Until yesterday, I thought PGP was an encryption protocol

[ajva]

I'm astonished I've never heard of pelvic girdle pain before. It just seems to be something that people are expected to put up with as an occasional hazard of pregnancy. I was expecting the odd ache and niggly pain, but yesterday I could barely move and felt as if little goblins were sticking a knitting needle into my left arse cheek whenever I

Comments

[thekumquat]

If you've only got it at all now, that's a good sign. The Pelvic Partnership website has helpful advice.

You may recall me using a wheelchair at BiCon 2008 before givin birth - that was SPD (or PGP to give it the modern more general term, though in my case it actually was the symphysis pubis that was buggered!). An osteopath may be able to sort it out if it's asymmetrical and intermittent (related to joints more than hormones).

[ajva]

Yes, I wasn't at Bicon 2008, but I remember hearing about that and thought of you yesterday, wondering if that was what it had been.

[thekumquat]

Indeed. Get thee a referral from your MW to an obstetric physio - your hospital should have them, and if your hospital does post-natal exercise/physio classes, try to get on them too. If you can't see a physio within a week and it's not better, find an osteopath.

There's two causes - relaxed joints in pregnancy getting unbalanced (usually resolveable, but you want to make sure it doesn't get worse - most common version), and an overdose of relaxin hormone making all the pelvic joints fall apart (what I had, nothing can be done, but on the plus side it should resolve itself within a fortnight of giving birth - which mine did, only then there were these other pains.

Went back to physio who said 'Yes - you haven't used any of those muscles for six months, have you?' D'oH!
So was prescribed 30 min walking 5x a week, plus the six weeks of physio from 8 weeks post-natal, and was then absolutely fine. Fit, even!

[hieroglyphe]

Get thee a referral from your MW to an obstetric physio - your hospital should have them, and if your hospital does post-natal exercise/physio classes, try to get on them too.

WSS. I also had PGP and the physio helped a bit. A truckload of painkillers and/or not being pregnant would've helped more though ;-)

Although anyone involved in your care, including your GP, should be able to refer you for the physio, IME it's best to go via the midwife (or your obstetrician if you have to have regular antenatal appointments at the hospital). I say this largely because the GP I had at the time was a) a clueless fuckwit and b) seemed to have the attitude that I should just put up with anything unpleasant. However from speaking to other people it does seem to be fairly common for GPs to be clueless about pregnancy-related stuff and just fob you off to the midwife.