3 Quick Tips for Pelvic Pain Relief
Okay, so how do you relieve pelvic pain really? Often it pops up during pregnancy, most doctors will say it just goes away after the baby is born… but many of my clients experience lasting pelvic pain. And, many of my clients and the people I talk to don’t want to just deal with pelvic pain for months or more.
Actually, the first time I experienced pelvic pain was in my late teens early 20’s when I was diagnosed with vaginismus, a presentation of pelvic pain where the vaginal muscles involuntarily tighten causing pain during intercourse or penetration of any sort. I was told to “just relax” and it would go away. It didn’t.
The second time I experienced pelvic pain was in a different presentation and came on months after my son was born. I didn’t really experience pelvic pain during my pregnancy, but as I returned to activity postpartum, I noticed that certain movements would cause immediate searing pelvic pain that turned to a dull ache for the rest of the day. Sometimes it happened while rolling in bed and during light daily activity also.
The third time is now, 35 weeks pregnant with my third, so I’ve learned a lot about pelvic pain over the years.
Since then, I’ve worked with and had the ability to help so many people experiencing pelvic pain relieve symptoms and in this blog, I’m going to share 3 quick tips for pelvic pain relief with you.
So, let’s get to it!
Unclench Your Glutes
This tends to be an “ah-ha!” moment for many of my clients when I ask them what their glutes are doing during exercise and everyday life. Most of them are like “I didn’t even realize I was standing that way or that my glutes were constantly gripped or that it was causing me to tuck my butt like 98% of the time.”
And here’s the things, a butt tuck isn’t necessarily wrong. It may be super helpful when you’re picking up your kid sometimes. HOWEVER, a constant glute grip or butt tuck could be causing some pelvic pain symptoms to flare or be persistent and here’s why….
The glutes and the pelvic floor are besties. They go together like beans and rice, like peanut butter and jelly, like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong (name that movie.) When the glutes are on, the pelvic floor is also often in an “on” or “shortened” position and pelvic pain is usually a sign that the pelvic floor muscles are overactive- or in a near-constant state of on.
Which makes sense that pelvic pain can rear its ugly head during pregnancy because as the baby grows it puts a lot of extra pressure on the pelvic floor. Now you may think the muscles respond by stretching- which they do- but the muscles often respond to extra pressure by inherently tightening to try and offset the extra weight. This is a really common adaptation after birth when the pelvic floor muscles have undergone intense change- because what do we often do when we get stressed or our muscles get injured? Tighten up and our muscles respond by tightening or holding tension. But that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, I could ramble on about this BUT the point is- UNCLENCH YOUR BUTT. Like the photo shows → Notice where your tension is being held. Get your glutes behind you instead of right up underneath you. This will help the pelvic floor relax a little and let go. (Then strengthen the glutes in this new position, but this is a conversation for another day!)
Shift Your Weight
One question I get all the time is about relieving pelvic pain during walking, jogging, or running. Pelvic pain while walking is SUPER common in late pregnancy. In fact, it’s something I’ve personally been dealing with in my third trimester with my third baby.
One tried and true way to relieve pelvic pain during walking, jogging, or running in the moment is to check where your weight is distributed. Are you leaning back and jutting your front leg way out, landing mainly on your heel first then striding through? This can place more uneven pressure on the pelvis and cause pelvic pain to happen with each step.
This is a really common adaptation for late pregnancy and early postpartum due to the shifts in center of gravity from the changing belly.
If this is what your stride looks like, lean forward from the hips instead. As you land, place your weight OVER your front foot, leaning into your stride. This will take some pressure off of the pelvis as you move forward. It may feel kind of awkward at first, especially if you’re used to being leaned back, but it can be so helpful.
Check out the photo for an example →
DON’T Do Kegels
Wait, WHAT?!? Literally everyone and their mom will suggest you do kegels for any sort of pelvic floor related issue. Got incontinence? Do your kegels. Pregnant? Do your kegels. Just had a baby? Kegels. Have pelvic pain? Do your kegels! Driving in the car? Kegel away!
But I’m here to tell you that kegels aren’t always effective and in cases of pelvic pain, we actually need to be teaching people how to RELAX their pelvic floors before we move to strengthening the muscles.
Think of it this way, say you hold tension in your neck often and it causes you to have migraines. So, you went to someone to find out what to do and they told you to start doing neck exercises strengthen your neck muscles… makes no sense, right?
What you actually need is to learn to relax those muscles and utilize other ones. Now, I will digress and say that it doesn’t mean that they don’t need strengthening- they just need to learn to release first.
But how do you do this if you can’t see the pelvic floor muscles or know what it feels like to relax them and the only pelvic floor exercise you know of are kegels? There are lots of ways to do this, but the first thing I start with is bringing awareness to muscle tension via breathing.
Learning to relax the pelvic floor is incredibly important when you’re preparing for birth. You can find out more about how to do just that by watching this YouTube video: How to Prepare your Pelvic Floor for Birth
And it’s one of the first things I teach my postpartum clients because learning how to connect your core and pelvic floor through both relaxation and contraction is SUPER important during recovery. You can learn more about how to do that by downloading my free resource: 3 Essential steps for returning to exercise postpartum
I hope these tips helped you get some pelvic pain relief now, because that’s what I’m all about- immediate relief and helping you learn how to use the tools at your disposal to relieve pain and symptoms. And if you haven’t already, make an appointment with a pelvic floor physical therapist to have your pelvic floor assessed and get a more individual approach to treatment! You can find one near you here.