Pelvic instability diagnosis

[Mildly]

Hi all

I had my physio appointment today at the hospital and after a good feel around of my back the physiotherapist said I had pelvic instability. He said the pelvis had relaxed, in readiness for birth, at an early stage in the pregnancy. he has recommended and given me a hip brace, which sounds worse than it is! It is just a stap, a couple of inches wide, that I have to keep quite tight around my hips all my waking hours. I have felt some relief already after having had it on since this morning, everything feels much more supported down at hip/lower back level

i did ask him whether it was likely to continue after giving birth and he replied that I have very good muscle tone and posture and so things would most probably return to normal within about 12 weeks after the birth, especially as I have never really had any previous back pain.

He also said the swimming was a good thing to carry on with but told me if I got really big during pregnancy that I should come back in for a larger belt

Anyway just thought I would report back in case any of you other ladies were having lower back problems too.

 

[Redshoes]

It's good to hear you've got something which is already relieving some pressure for you I do hope all continues to go well for you and things do return eventually after baby's born, very best wishes

 

[Steelgoddess]

Im glad you have some form of relief especially during preggytime!!

 

[Mildly]

Thanks girls The strap really does seem to work, I am amazed

 

[Neev]

Mildly can you describe what kind of pain you had because maybe I am getting something similar but I was kind of just letting it go over my head thinking this is the norm...I feel pain only when I have been for a long walk of say 45 minutes, it does not hurt then but after I have sat down for 1 hour or when I wake up at night to go to the toilet I am literally limping because the lower back pain is so bad. It has been like this since 12th week and I have never had lower back pain before.....

I am wondering if it is ok to get some pain or were you in constant pain throughout the day? Glad the belt is working for you though...

Thanks in advance...

 

[Mildly]

Neev that sounds very similar to what I have. I have two pain hotspots one is the lower back both sides which is mostly a dull ache a lot of the time. The other is what I thought was the very base of my spine but the physio thinks is actually my pelvis and that is like an ache inside me which is really sore when sitting down and turning over in bed especially. Everything seems to stiffen up if rested for too long but gets sore and aggravated if overused i.e. dog walking for an hour or so. I now walk very slowly as the area inside my hips feel a bit sore too. I wouldn't say the pain is constant and it does seem to have slightly improved since I started swimming (even though I am doing breaststroke which is not recommended).

There is a great article here which is a pdf printable version of the nhs leaflet. I think different ladies get different pain symptoms and all are explained here.

I would definitely ask your midwife for a physio referral as the he was able to diagnose me within a few minutes of feeling my spine and listening to my symptoms. I did a search on here for SPD, which is what it also is and found a few ladies having to resort to crutches in tri 3 because of the pain. I'm hoping that I can avoid that but they do say that early diagnosis does help.

Hope that helps Neev

Edit - forgot to say that I was amazed that 1 in 5 pregnant women suffer from it!

 

[fuffins1981]

This is my second pregnancy with SPD. Mine went straight away after my first baby.

Good luck I hope that you have had support early enough to not get it too bad

 

[Neev]

thanks so much..I am definately going to mention this in my next appointment.... your symptoms do sound similar to mine .. I usually have DH massaging it for me and that does bring some relief but if this might get worse I better get this mentioned ...