Massage for pelvic girdle pain
Using Massage to Manage Pelvic Girdle Pain
July has been massage month and to finish off our third blog post in the series we would like to raise awareness about Pelvic girdle pain, or PGP (previously known as symphysis pubis dysfunction or SPD). This condition commonly affects women during pregnancy and just afterwards.
It is usually caused by muscular spasm in one or two muscles that attach the thigh, abdominal or low back muscles to one of the pelvis bones (of which there are three).
The consequence of the spasm is the sensation that something is both stuck, and very painful which can be frightening and stressful as well as preventing you from sleeping comfortably with the knock-on effect of feeling shattered!
What are the consequences?
Because the affected muscle is often in the groin, many women will limit their stride to tiny steps because a long stride hurts, which can cause other muscles to fatigue.
Some women will start limping badly by hitching up a hip to avoid swinging a leg too much.
Other women might reduce the amount of swing from both hips, and use their back to create side to side momentum to help swing each leg through when walking causing their back to become strained.
Why does PGP occur?
As your body produces the hormone relaxin to soften your pelvis ligaments in preparation for birth, your hip pubic and back joints open more which this causes the muscles moving the joints to shorten and tighten or spasm painfully.
How can you treat it?
Massage can be extremely helpful to relieve the target muscle strains and spasm in the groin, buttock or back as well as help to lengthen all the other muscles around the pelvis to help your body adapt to the increasing weight of your baby down through your pelvis.
Our massage therapists are both extremely experienced and are highly intuitive when it comes to identifying the strained muscles and using the right amount of pressure to release the muscle without causing you any pain (but providing a lot of relief).
Our other massage blog posts are: Sports Massage, Pregnancy Massage.
If you’re not sure whether we can help, please give us a call on 020 7735 6813 or email info@kenningtonosteopaths.co.uk
