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.

@Needanewname42 thank you, and everyone else encouraging the same. I needed someone to tell me it's ok to just rest.

I've been struggling with not measuring up with expectations, my 2 friends who have had babies recently were doing CrossFit until month 8 so I feel wholly inadequate.

Nothing about being pregnant has been as expected!

I have been resting the last 3 days and I have naturally eaten less food actually. Thankfully my DH loves cooking so my overall diet is very good (ignoring the horror show of the first trimester where I ate jam on toast for 12 weeks)

@DontKnow1988 Please don't compare yourself to your friends. Your body isn't theirs and every pregnancy is different. And every baby is different. They are just lucky not to have had to deal with PGP.

You have to do what's right for you, now in this pregnancy. I'd keep going with swimming if you can, it found it really helpful especially as my baby got bigger.
But don't push it.

Lots of good advice on this thread. I have a milder case than you by the sound of it (mainly SI pain rather than at the front) but just thought I'd mention that I've been seeing a chiropractor since 24 weeks or so. At that point it was getting pretty bad and I was in tears after a few of my sessions because the adjustment she'd make to the alignment of my pelvis was so painful afterwards. But I had sessions twice a week for ages, then once a week. I'm now a week off my due date and it's so much better. I think it's partly the regular chiro but also wonder if the positioning of baby makes a difference because it definitely peaked mid 20-30 weeks for me. Just thought I'd mention as I was thinking oh my gosh this is going to get worse as bump gets heavier but it actually didn't.

I would definitely stop the exercise for now, if it gets better you can reintroduce some walking (I can walk for a while but I really feel it the next day if I've been on my feet too long). It's frustrating but soon your bump will be big enough that the thought of exercise is not a particularly fun one anyway!

I don't have any advice. Just wanted to say I totally relate @DontKnow1988. I'm 22 weeks with my second and had PGP with my first and it started about 14/15 weeks with this one. It's absolutely shit and there's no comfortable way to be. I'm normally active and walk a lot. I really struggle with doing nothing and it makes me feel really cooped up and crap.

I've ordered a crochet kit to try and make my enforced rest feel more productive (though this may prove to be an act of sleep deprived desperate madness).

I hope you manage to find some relief.

Please don’t compare yourself to others, it’s hard see in what they can do in pregnancy but please don’t feel bad about it!
With my first pregnancy I was able to exercise and move with ease. With my second I was in excruciating pain throughout and needed crutches to walk.

The physio massages actually made it worse for me. The only thing that eased the pain was doing a lot of exercises on the pregnancy ball and making sure I had the correct sized ball for my height.

The physio made a plan of exercises to continue once my baby was born. Thankfully as soon as he was born, I wasn’t in anymore pain and could walk easily! It’s important though to carry on with the plan after birth so I still did all my exercises.

Hello OP, i have PGP really badly too.

I've been told bedrest and opioids. I'm already on opioids for pre-pregnancy pelvic pain so that wasn't helpful for me. But I will say you NEED to rest. If you overdo it the pain will get worse, which is tiring in itself. Some people end up on total bedrest with this, so be kind to yourself! rest as much as you need. I have a little nest on the sofa - footstool, pregnancy pillow to cradle me, and a heatpad against my lower back. I recommend something similar. Some people find ice better.

Please make an appointment with your GP about pain relief. There are other pain medications you can take in pregnancy if you need it. If you're in uncontrolled pain and distressed and finding it hard to cope, your baby will be feeling stressed too and that's not good for the baby. I'm taking codeine and oramorph daily - I'm a bit of an extreme/complex case painwise but my point is there really are options you can try, both to have daily (e.g. amytripyline) and/or to have when the pain flares. You don't need to suffer!

I swear if men had PGP they'd be flinging painkillers at them like they were going out of fashion.

Someone either MW or GP mentioned to me it can get better further on as the baby's head engages in the pelvis and stops it from moving.

Same here and I have been seeing a chiropractor who is qualified in pregnancy and oh my god she is magic! It's not gone but it is bearable. Also serola belt for walking x

I developed PGP from 22 weeks after staying active and swimming! Just woke up with it one day. It was manageable until 28 weeks at which point I found only an osteopath helped mine. Once I got to 34/35 weeks not even that helped and unfortunately I was pretty house bound then.

By way of reassurance, it completely disappeared within 4 days of birth (section)

Another vote here for an osteopath, rather than a physio. I saw both in my previous pregnancy and the osteopath was SO much better.

My osteopath said you need to make space around your ribs and mid/upper back to give baby room to move up and take the pressure off your pelvis. Lots of stretches upwards and generally for upper/mid back and ribs may help until you can get booked in with a good one.

My PGP also completely disappeared after the birth, it was amazing to just curl up in bed normally without feeling like my hips were on fire!! As others have said, take it easy and don't be hard on yourself, do gentle stretches as much as you can and hopefully you get some tailored advice soon.

See an osteopath/whatever from the Pelvic Partnership‘s list of practitioners recommended by other women with PGP. I saw one who said he was experienced in PGP and I just got a wave of nausea remembering what he did to me, 16 years ago. I then saw someone from the PGP list and he helped so much, was truly expert, I am so grateful.

Update in case someone else in the same situation finds this thread (and as a thank you to all you lovely ladies): I got the Serola belt on Friday morning and have been wearing it since, when I'm active (doing sth around the house, or short shop trip). It has made a remarkable difference! The pain and discomfort has not gone away but enough for me to be a functioning human being again!

That’s brilliant! I found it really helpful.

Make sure you rest. The physio said overdoing it on good days will cause more bad days.