A Right Royal Pain In The ...

Now I try not to go on about this, but I have mentioned it once.

There is a slight issue that has been complicating the pregnancy, move, work, managing Sonny and Smoochy, housework, shopping, walking, sleeping, and sitting down minding my own business. This has been a problem for me since I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Sonny, and it tends not to get completely better in between pregnancies.

Here it is.

There is a joint at the back of the bony pelvis called the sacro-iliac joint. It's called that because it joins the sacrum (triangular bit at the bottom of the spine) to the ilium (the uppermost part of each hip bone). The joint is like two plates of bone sitting perfectly together, held tightly by their own sandpapery faces and strong ligaments strapping it all up.

This is a picture of a normal sacro-iliac joint (complete with incorrect spelling of "iliac"):

And this is a picture of mine:


Spot the difference?

Being naturally low-tone, when the pregnancy hormones sweep through and make everything a little bit more floppy and lax than usual, the ligaments loosen and allow this joint to slide around, causing all manner of pain and not a little bit of gasping and yelling.

Most of the time it's just background pain that reminds me not to do things that make it worse like standing on one leg to wash my feet, shave my legs or put pants on, using a breaststroke kick when swimming, attempting to roll over in bed without slippery boxer shorts on, go up stairs two at a time or put all my weight on one leg when getting into the car. And I will never even think of sitting on a bike ever again.

But sometimes, the joint gets so far out of alignment that it's really a literal pain in the ass! The slightest move can have me gasping in pain, unable to move. Sometimes I am in the middle of rolling over in bed and I get stuck. Sometimes I am standing on one leg and find that I can't put any weight on the other leg otherwise pains shoot through my lower body, so I'm left standing there like a flamingo, breathing deeply and clenching my fists.

Anyone who thinks of suggesting pelvic floor exercises is out of their mind. I've done trillions of them. Do not leave a comment about it. Doing pelvic floor exercises against such sacro-iliac instability is about as effective as thrashing a convicted felon with a wet lettuce.

Now here is the whole point of my post: up until now, packers and removalists hav been doing a lot of the work for me (and now I guess you know why I said, "No Packers: No Moving!!") But tomorrow we move in to our new home, and something tells me that the removalists won't be hanging around to help me unpack!

Spare a thought for me and my Personal Pain In The Ass. It might be a tricky few weeks! (But I'm looking forward to it - seriously I am!)