Physio will help a little, but it'll be hard to get any sort of decent relief at this stage. Once it gets bad, it's very hard to come back from it. There are lots of things that you can do to stop it from getting any worse - and maybe give you some relief.
If you have another pregnancy, I'd advise you to be super strict from the start and you should notice a big difference. My third pregnancy was a vastly different experience from my first because I had seen the difference during pregnancy number 2 and I decided to be incredibly strict on the dos and don'ts right from the start.
Here are some things that helped me (sorry for the essay!)
- Keep your legs together as much as possible. Basically, pretend you are mermaid-like with one big leg
-When getting in to the car, sit in bum-first, then swing your legs in. When getting out of the car, swing your legs out together before attempting to stand. A tip to make swivelling easier is to put plastic bags on the seat.
-When getting into bed, sit at the side of the bed, then lean on your elbow and at the same time, swing your legs upwards onto the bed and lie down on your side. From there, use your elbows and knees to position yourself comfortably. Use the reverse action when getting out of bed.
When turning in bed at night, keep your knees together and use your feet and elbows to move, lifting your hips without twisting them.
-Don't cross your legs when sitting and avoid sitting in a slouched position. Maybe sit on a kitchen chair rather than on a sofa.
-When getting dressed or undressed, don't stand on one leg. Sit down to put on underwear, trousers, etc.
-When you need to kneel down, do a lunge. Carefully bending one leg down first, then bring the other one down.
2.One step at a time on the stairs if you're finding stairs tough.
Going up stairs, lead with your good leg. Going down, lead with your bad. "Good goes to heaven, bad goes to hell." is a helpful memory aid!
- No heels whatsoever. Or flat shoes like Converse. Supportive granny shoes as much as possible. I got a small wedge for one shoe from the physio which helped with the imbalance, too.
- Sit with hips HIGHER than knees. Gym ball should be pumped up enough so that your hips are higher when you sit down. A wedge cushion is good for chairs and in the car.
- Avoid walking. Or standing for long periods. I used to get dropped off at the door like some sort of celeb!
- Avoid any push and twist actions. So, that's any activity that requires you to use your hips to twist your body - no hoovering, no mopping, no pushing trolleys (although, I found that if I walked beside the trolley and turned it carefully that way, it put much less pressure on the hips)
- Massage your bum and thighs and you will find lots of really tender, sore spots. Use a tennis ball, a spikey ball, or other massager to roll the area (lean against the wall and roll - think twerking!! Not a good look, but worth it). This will help to ease some of the knots out and give you a bit of relief. It's bloody sore though.
- A memory foam mattress or mattress topper is a godsend. I'd go to bed crippled and wake up a new woman :)
Here are a couple of videos on YouTube on PGP: and and and this one has some recommended exercises . They have a good series of video blogs, so you might find more useful info there.