Hormonal pelvic floor?

[KanyesVest]

I has SPD when pregnant with Ds, which was manageable through my pregnancy (even after I fell and sprained my hip). His birth however, made it much worse and I was on crutches for 6 weeks post delivery (emcs). He's now almost 4. I have worked heard in the last 4 years to strengthen my core and pelvic floor and have lost 3+ stone in weight (unfortunately 2 more to go, but getting there). I have to take care when doing some core and impact exercises and have an ongoing programme for my obliques and glutes in particular; I have a good personal trainer who is guiding me. I do crossfit 3x per week and I plod run 30-40mins twice per week.

In spite of all of this, when I ovulate and when I have my period I feel like my right leg is about to fall off, and I get a lot of stress incontinence when exercising. I've asked gp, gynae and a specialist physio about it and they have fobbed me off and generally given me the look.

I feel like I'm slightly batty about it at this stage, so I'm wondering, hoping, someone might know what I'm talking about?

I have the same problem. My pelvic floor started to give during pregnancy and a difficult childbirth left me with stress incontinence. I've worked quite hard to fix it over the years (I too have string glutes), and had a subsequent pregnancy etc. A lot of the time I feel quite confident about it, but leading up to my period it feels less strong and I can leak when running or sneezing.

I stupidly went for the implant contraceptive, which is progesterone and that may be the hormone responsible for loosening ligaments and stuff. It also makes my cycle unpredictable, which makes it even more annoying.

I'd not thought that it might be when I ovulate too. I will start keeping an eye out for that. There have been times when I've had issues and not had a period and I've just blamed the implant.

You are not alone. I have seen this reported on other Mumsnet threads.

Hormones must have some effect otherwise why does the reported incidence of stress incontinence rise after menopause.

I've just been diagnosed with PGP, fortunately bearable. I've been given loads of literature, and it does say that women can experience a recurrence of symptoms during periods. I'll see if I can dig it out.

www.csp.org.uk/sites/files/csp/secure/pogp-pgppat.pdf_latest_print.pdf

Page 11! Says that you should request another assessment of your pelvis.

Thanks for the replies and the link. I hadn't considered the contraceptive impact; I have the Merina and now that I think about it, it probably has had an impact. Hmmm...