PGP - tips to help a miserable pregnant woman

[DontKnow1988]

Posting for traffic. I'm 25/26 weeks pregnant and have had PGP since week 15.

I have a physio but it's not helping - she massages and releases the pain and I feel great for 3 hours, after which the pain comes back 100x worse and I can't walk or go to work for 2 days. I wfh 3 days a week so that's not an issue (except I hate WFH). Physio is meant to specialise in women's health so I don't know if there is just nothing else they can do for me.

I love walking but it makes it worse.

Swimming is OK for short bits but that's more for exercise- I don't know if it releases the pain (also, it's a faff, I can't do it every day, i have a FT job).

Warm baths and massaging my glutes with a massage gun help for about 10-20 mins, then pain comes back as badly as before.

Sitting is agony. My tailbone is killing me. Sitting on an exercise ball helps a tiny bit.

Sleeping was ok until 2 nights ago and now I have pain lying down too, which has pushed me over the edge mentally.

My ob gyn just reminds me I am allowed to take paracetamol.

I am losing my mind. I went for a short walk yesterday with DH and I was mentally trying to pick a car to jump in front of as I want this to end - I have never been in this much pain in my life.

Urgh sympathy. I had to give up walking. Got signed off work and gave into it. Got crutches. Walking was the worst each step the impact hurt. Not agony but the accrual of it gets you down.

Mine vanished once baby born. Incredibly didn’t get it at all in my second pregnancy god knows why. Didn’t risk a third.

18 years on absolutely fine but mindful still get twinges if I overdo impact playing sport etc.

You are doing a lot of exercise for someone with PGP. I know it doesn't seem that way because you probably are comparing to how life was before pregnancy but you have to change perspective just for a while until the end of your pregnancy. 15-20 mins walking will easily cause your PGP to flair up. Try and genuinely rest for a week and see how you feel. Don't do more than potter about and drive everywhere you can instead of walk. I am doing this myself and it's been the only way to cope in third trimester. I keep telling myself this will end once I've had baby which makes it easier to live with.

OP I feel for you. It's miserable.

Mine started around 20 weeks, I found exercise ball sitting and support belt combo did help.
Physio exercises didn't help it not hurt but did help it to stop getting worse.
I was nervous about taking codeine but sparingly it worked for me. I also had a planned induction due to PGP as I couldn't cope with going over my due date.

Mine went pretty much straight away. Hope it does for you too xx

Basically don't move.

The massive pillow and belt helped me a bit.

I've known people end up in wheelchairs with it, so I count myself lucky (I also had HG so moving made me sick anyway).

These are the reasons I have only one child.

Agree you doing any walking is insane let alone voluntarily- just why?. I struggled with short walk bus stop to office with my crutches. Eventually I got sent to the occupational health lady at work who was an older retired mid wife. She looked at me in horror and sent me home immediately and that was that for work.

I would also agree that it sounds like you are doing a lot of exercise for someone with PGP. Swimming 2-3 times a week plus a walk is a lot! Some people that aren’t pregnant barely do anything like that! I imagine it’s frustrating when you compare to before pregnancy as you were obviously very active but it’s all relative.

Crutches, pillow between knees, sitting on a gym ball rather than a normal chair. Belt didn't help me at all. Do as little as possible! Use the lift rather than the stairs where possible.

Don't feel bad about the lack of exercise - although it probably feels terrible right now, it will be much easier to get your fitness back post pregnancy than have to fix damage done by overdoing it!

Just to add I'm 5 months PP and still suffer with it. Not as bad when I was pregnant but didn't fully disappear

A belt helped me a little, not much, and a big pillow helped me sleep. For me though, it started to alleviate a little just before birth when DD engaged. It was like the added structure there helped everything to find its place and stay there. Then for me honestly.... The same day I had delivered, it just disappeared completely, and that was that. I realise reading this that that isn't the case for everyone, but for me it was, so don't despair.

I'm so sorry for you, it is shit. Just wanted to add my experience which was utterly awful in both pregnancies but in both cases resolved as soon as I gave birth. It never came back and I've been fine in the decade and a half since. It won't necessarily be a problem afterwards. I did have to go on maternity leave early though, and was pretty housebound from 20 weeks in the second pregnancy, and there was very little that helped while I was still pregnant.

I kept walking to a minimum, as I felt like I was just going to inflict permanent damage if I pushed myself. It was really hard 2nd time round with a toddler but we made it, and having these two has totally been worth it.

Sending sympathy, I had this with both my pregnancies and it's awful.
Not helped by people not realising it's different to "back pain" and no a bit of gentle exercise really isn't beneficial!!
Have you tried a support belt? Serola are good.
Also get one of those sleep pillows and have it going behind your back to keep your pelvis straight and between your legs so you're not squeezing your pelvic joints together as much.
Swimming might actually be aggravating things, it did for me and I had to stop.
I did pregnancy yoga with my second, with an instructor that specialises in pregnancy so she would give me special exercises to do or tell me alternatives to what the rest of the class were doing. Could be worth looking into.

Oh also my exercise ball was a godsend, it was the only thing I could comfortably sit on in the last month.

I wouldn't even do this. Don't push yourself it will only make it worse. Sit down as much as you can and make sure your chair is quite upright so not putting too much pressure on your coccyx

I had horrendous PGP from 29 weeks. Im a nurse in a&e so told my manager I couldnt cope and I worked non clinical for 10 weeks. Im in a managerial role so this was feasable. Nothing really I found helped. I used a support band which gave some mild relief but was uncomfortable wearing for long periods. I was in agony towards the end and used crutches for the few few steps after getting up. Took codeine and paracetamol which made me wired. Just sucked it up in the end and accepted it is what it is. On a positive note the pain was gone almost instantly after my waters were broke and I gave birth.

@TheaBrandt because I keep reading that it's very important that pregnant women are active and that walking is great exercise if you can't do weights and other more intense exercise....I see now that was a mistake. I was very active before pregnancy and this has floored me. I basically haven't been able to exercise almost at all since I got pregnant (first the morning sickness, then PGP) and I feel awful about it. I'm scared of how unfit I will be, how fat I am getting, I'll get gestational diabetes etc.

I've really fallen for the whole "pregnancy is not an illness" crap and thought I could exercise normally until the end and I can’t and I feel so crap about it! I'm an idiot, I fully accept that!

I'm getting a Serola belt, should arrive tomorrow, so thank you everyone for recommending a belt, I hadn't looked into that yet!

Keeping as active as possible helped mine as long as I avoided "unsafe" movements like lunges etc. I did a pregnancy HIIT class or pilates at least once a week, sometimes more. I tried to exercise at least a few times a week and would stretch on days in between.

Avoid sitting on the floor. Sit comfortably with good posture.

If you work a desk job, I found sitting on a birthing/exercise ball a lot of the time helped me, I had worse pain in a chair.

I had a support belt from my physio, not sure if it helped or not really but she was very experienced women's health physio so I wore it as much as possible anyway on her advice. I bought it from her so she checked the fit etc.

Had a few physio sessions privately.

Also had a few pregnancy massages in the last few weeks which helped loads. I found baths helped ease pain too.

A good pregnancy pillow for sleeping, so it can go in-between your knees and under your bump for support.

When the pain was particularly severe I had to take codeine sometimes.

Ooh I missed also, if you have coccyx pain, get a coccyx cushion and always sit on that. I had that terribly in my first pregnancy, I had to take the cushion around with me everywhere to sit on! Bought a really thick one from Amazon.

Don't beat yourself up, I didn't know much about PGP when I first got pregnant and made loads of mistakes! When I mentioned I was having pain my midwife gave me a photocopy of a leaflet and that was it really.
I was healthy and fairly active too when I got pregnant so it is a big adjustment to stop and incredibly frustrating to not be able to do things when you feel fine otherwise.

Don't listen to people who make you feel bad about not exercising or pushing yourself, they are wrong and with PGP the advice is to rest. I think it's quite difficult to understand this condition if you've not been through it but the pain can be excruciating and is constant too so really hard to deal with.

Pregnancy isn't an illness but a lot of pregnant women end up with pregnancy related conditions that make them ill and just can't carry on as normal.

Fortunately I the pain should get a lot better very soon after you give birth x

@maw1681 it doesn't always go away.

No i know that very well unfortunately but I don't think OP needs to know that right now! Most of the time it does go away or at least improve a lot.

It has improved from when i was pregnant. But get niggles still.

Glad you ordered one. It was literally a life saver for me, enabled me to keep walking, working. After that the only time it bothered me was when not wearing. I even slept in it at some points it was so helpful.

It's important to talk to your midwife about birthing positions, some can really aggravate this

@DontKnow1988
Calm!!! It's sounds like you've previously been very fit and are struggling sitting on your bum!

Your barely out of first tri. Your body has just made a baby human, with arms and legs and everything, and a whole organ to go with it.

It's exhausting work. Rest as much as you need to.

I'm not saying diet because that's not the right thing to do either But be mindful you might need lightly less calories if you aren't pounding the gym multiple times a week.

I found the info and booklets on this website helpful when pregnant with PGP.

Site:
https://thepogp.co.uk/patient_information/womens_health/pregnancy_pgp_lbp.aspx

Booklet:
https://thepogp.co.uk/resources/112/pregnancy_related_pelvic_girdle_pain_for_mothers_to_be_and_new_mothers

Limiting activity which separated my legs helped (cycling was okay, but getting on/off was painful), having a pregnancy pillow between my legs helped, and never sitting for more than 20-30 minutes at a time without changing position.

Mine eased around 36 weeks, and went away completely when my daughter was born.