There are various possible reasons for this, such as a delay in starting treatment, muscles which tighten (spasm) quickly between treatments and, later in the pregnancy, the size of your growing baby. Don’t despair if this happens to you. It sometimes takes a while for your therapist to work out why these compensations are happening and stop them, so do persist with treatment. Postnatally, you need to carry on with treatment until you feel better; this takes varying lengths of time and often depends on how long you have experienced symptoms.
The most important thing to remember is that you should notice some improvement after each treatment (in pain and/or function) even if your joint stability cannot be maintained for long. If this is the case or you’re noticing little improvement then it may be worth exploring the following options.
It can take time to find the right practitioner to help you – many women have reported trying two or three practitioners before finding the one that helped them to progress. You should expect to make continuous improvement and if this stops at any stage, discuss it with your therapist or seek another opinion, but never accept that you “just have to wait” for recovery – there’s always a reason why things don’t move forward, and usually something can be done to get recovery back on track.
Read Charlene’s story shows how it can take time and perseverance to find the right practitioner to help:
You may be overdoing things at home/work, so try to slow down and pace your activities and be realistic about what you can and can’t do. There can be different challenges at each stage of pregnancy, postnatally and beyond. Some women find that they start to make a recovery but key stages in family life might bring a return of the painful symptoms. For example, manual therapy when the baby is still tiny may reduce the PGP symptoms but when the baby turns into an active and heavy toddler, PGP symptoms may return.
Each woman will have her own triggers such as using the vacuum cleaner or pushing a heavy shopping trolley. Similarly, with a return to work, more time driving, taking on some sport, or becoming pregnant again, etc, it is possible that the PGP symptoms may return. However, by having knowledge and understanding about what movements or tasks can cause their PGP symptoms again, most women can usually find ways to avoid such flare-ups or manage them by having another few treatment sessions. It is usually possible to adapt slight changes to day-to-day tasks to reduce any instances of the symptoms recurring again.
Check out our free ebook “PGP is treatable!” or our Living with PGP pages to help you find strategies to manage your pain:
Pelvic Partnership FREE ebook “PGP is treatable!”
If you are still not responding to treatment, it might be worth exploring if there are other issues at play, such as issues with your pelvic floor or hypermobility:
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