Coccydynia/Pelvic Floor Muscle Problems

[leah44]

Hi,

I am pg with #2 now but after my 1st HG pg, I ended up with an unexplainable condition that makes it extremely painful to sit. At first, the doctors thought it was coccydynia (pain at the coccyx bone) and told me there was no cure. I tried pain management treatment & that didn't work. Then I went to a physical therapist & she thinks that my problems are a result of my pelvic floor muscles atrophying during my pregnancy. Since I spent months flat with HG, this makes sense. It did get a bit better each time I would go to therapy but would flare up again within a day or 2. I finally decided that I didn't want to wait to get pg again any longer (since I really didn't think anyone would come up with an answer to my pain) so I haven't had any therapy or treatment for it in the last few months. I am concerned about how this pg and the HG-caused bed rest will affect my ability to sit in the future.

Anyone else have a similar problem?

Leah
(Derek, born 4/22/02; edd 12/6/04)

[mandy]

Leah,
I don't know if this is of any use to you but I had terrible problems with my pelvis during my second preg with the bones and muscles connecting them. I had to wear a support at around five months onwards and was extremely uncomfortable in bed - my pelvis would click and grind when I moved even a tiny bit. It would make me cry with pain and take a while for me to be mobile each morning. (Lovely to have that and hg!).

Anyway I know this isn't exactly your problem but its in the same area! I fully recovered from this within a few weeks of the birth. I have no problems now. Obviously yours is different as you have it whilst not being pregnant but my pelvis took a severe battering with my son, but I still managed a normal delivery of a 9lb boy. Hope this helps you feel positive.

Good luck to you. Mandy x

[Mar2]

Leah-- I am sorry the aftereffects of HG have been so painful for you. It is understandable you finally chose to move forward with another pgcy rather than wait for a cure/treatment for the pain. After HG, cures and treatments seem like long-shots at best.

Although my post-partum pain was not related to sitting (although it hurt to get into the sitting position), I thought I'd share my story since it is somewhat similar to yours...

As with most HGers, being bedridden for 8 months wreaked havoc on all my muscles especially my back and neck. It was an annoyance during the latter half of my pgcy, but bareable in comparison to other things. Then, at about 10 days post-partum, I developed severe joint pain throughout my entire body, which made it difficult to move let alone pick up my daughter. At first my doctor thought I hadn't tapered off the steriods properly. But then she diagnosed me with Parvovirus or Fifth's Disease (also known as slapped cheek disease in children). Normally, it is asymptomatic in adults, but with my weakened immune system, I developed the tell-tale signs of joint pain and swelling. They told me the pain would disappear in 10 days. About a month later, I told the doctor the pain was continuing and getting worse. She then told me a small portion of women have the pain for 3 to 4 months. So in November, with no relief in site, I called the doctor and she sent me to a rheumatologist. I was still testing positive for Parvovirus, which should NOT have been the case. But he thought all of my pain really had to do with the degradation of my muscles during pgcy as well as being bedridden. He suggested some pain meds and a chiropractor for some temporary relief. He thought if I could get some relief and start building back the muscles, I might start getting some more long term relief. So I did the chiro for a month or two and by the end of February was free of joint pain and could walk up the stairs to work. I did have a few relapses related to my lower back, but with some specific exercises and a few more chiro adjustments, I've been feeling LOADS better.

I am not sure if chiropractic treatment would help you, but I guess you could run it past your doctor. For me, the chiro worked better than the pain meds...most of the meds burned my stomach and Vioxx had little effect on the pain.

Best of luck to you with this pregancy. Do they think anything as simple as Kegel exercises might help you? Can you even stand to do them?

Take care and let us know how you are feeling.

[Suzand3girls]

help from Physiotherapy and I need to do my pelvic floor exercises daily or I lose ground quickly. I'm determined to avoid surgery as from what I've read, often times surgery makes things worse. I'm fortunate to have minimal symptoms for the severity of my prolapse. I have mild stress incontinence, low back pressure and sometime mild pain during intercourse.

I use The Personal Care Kit for Bladder Health from www.phoenixpub.com to strengthen my pelvic floor muscles. The kit comes with a book that explains the exercises, a ball and a theraband to exercise with. It also has a tape on Physiological Quieting, I've never used it.

I love this new site! I was 3rdXpg at the HuGS site but I had not visited in quite a while. I've signed up as a volunteer now, what a wonderful feature!

My girls are 8, 5 and 27 months now. The younger two still have issues with reflux not sure if this is genetic or HG related.

[Jeanne]

I too had this problem and tried everything, including acupuncture, massage, sitting on donut cushions, Celebrex. I had a donut cushion at the kitchen table, the computer and the car. The Celebrex helped the most but hurt my stomach. I had also tried the other things b/c I was nursing and couldn't take the Celebrex. Good news is, I am better now and my tailbone only hurts on 10 hour road trips now. Bad news - it was much worse after the delivery of my second and took much longer to get better. She was three years old before I was sitting comfortably. Hope this helps. The other thing that helped was all the bed rest but as soon as she was delivered I was catapulted back into discomfort.

[liselar]

I don't know if this is related to your coccydynia or not, but your description sounds too familiar for me not to reply. About 4 months postpartum I started noticing horrible pain in my sacral region. It may have been there before but I was focused on making it through the pregnancy and then falling in love with my daughter and husband again.

The pain gets worse the longer I am immobile ("Sleeping" is excruciating!). I get extremely stiff and it feels as though the vertebrae start to fuse together. I must shift positions quite often when sitting or lying down. Upon wakening in the morning, I must SLOWLY curl and uncurl my back several times to "unstick" it so I can get out of bed.

At the time my doctor prescribed physical therapy, plus tylenol with anti-inflammitory drugs saying that it was just normal stretched out, weakened postpartum muscles. That was three years ago. I now have "arthritis" that does show up on x-rays.

I never had any back problems before and was exceptionally strong and athletic before my full-term HG pregnancy. I now accept that I am not the person I was before in many ways and try to rationalize that I can deal with the pain given the beautiful daughter we have.

Certainly my trunk muscles suffered during the 5 or so months I was in bed wretching but it seems that whatever the cause(s), my back pain is now something I must live with permanently.

A POSSIBLY RELATED MUSING:
I have read that certain factors like allergies seem to predispose women to HG. Since arthritis, like allergies, is an autoimmune disorder I have often wondered if HG might not also be...The body's (over)reaction to a "foreign" body (the fetus).