Anyones else suffered achy joints since the birth of DC?

[gingerninja]

I feel like an arthritic 80 year old since DD2 was born 10 weeks ago, all my joints - specifically my wrists, ankles and hips are agony especially when I've been sat for a while or in the morning. Is it something to do with breastfeeding zapping my calcium or something? Has anyone else suffered this or am I an oddity?

no me too, my finger joints, ankles and knees are particularly bad! haven't done anything about it though. have to say though, my aunt has rheumatoid arthritis and said that it first started after having her first child, but was much worse after the second . Hope that's not what it is!

Ooooh yes, terribly - especially first thing on a morning. I must say though it is getting better but then Ds is 11mo now

it's really quite common, over the years i've noticed a fair number of women mention this post-partum, and have had it resolve as sleep gets better and health stabilises for mum.

However, and now don't panic yourself but in my case, well, i've developed rheumatoid arthritis , and one of the symptoms any of us with it recognise is morning stiffness.

In a case like mine it's because pregnancy is a major immune event, and an immune system, depressed during pregnancy to stop you rejecting the baby, can bounce back too hard after the birth and give rise to autoimmune disease, where it thinks bits of you are the enemy...in my case my joint linings, gut and thyroid.

with ds1 i had auto-immune hypothyroiditis develop (which can also cause joint pain!) and with ds2, RA and coeliac disease.

though hips is an uncommon site for RA, so don't you worry needlessly. also, some fluctuation in thyroid function is common post-partum and will settle down by itself most frequently.

ask gp for thryoid and RA tests screen if you are worried. more about RA here And please don't worry too much, it's more likely not RA and if it is RA, well the drugs work OK.

Oh I had this.

I hobbled out of bed in the morning and my fingers got all stiff, esp the little fingers.

It stopped gradually after about four months.

silversixpence, in the last few years there are some really effective treatments newly introduced that can give you remission if it is RA. we are so much luckier than previous generations, we don't have to endure the way they did.

This happened to me after dd - she was 3 months old when we went to Spain with my much older brother. I jumped off a little wall, and yelped because it really hurt all my joints, and he looked at me with a face of doom and said "It'll always be like that now"

Thankfully it wasn't - after about 6 months everything went back to normal. It wasn't so bad after my second, and I am now 52 and only occasionally achy - so don't worry!

It's quite common for relaxin - the hormone which affects the joints in late pregnancy to take up to four months to be expelled from the system. Also if you get a cold in the post partum period, as merryberry has said, your immune system may over react and you may get temporary joint pain and arthritis (reactive arthritis).

It will go in any case. Light exercise - walking for example - can help.

Yes, I ache like I've run a marathon every day. My DS is 15 weeks old and DD 3.6yrs and I've just put it down to broken nights, breast feeding and absoloute and complete knackeredness!

Hoping it'll pass sometime before DS reaches 5!

Oh that's good to hear, not because I want you all to be suffering but now I feel like I'm not a nutcase. I'm going to go to the Dr though and just check it out.

I had the same and it lasted about 10m but was much better after about 6m.

Hi

Vitamin D deficiency can cause joint pain. Vitamin D is taken from the pregnant mother by the baby. Google it!