Finding Balance: Wellness for the Everyday Struggle: September 2019

It's amazing how life can get away from you. Granted, I do have two young kids, and it's been a crazy busy summer with 4 weddings to attend (plus 3 bachelorette and bachelor parties to go to/plan around) and two big parties held at my house between mid-May and second week of September, so...I guess busy was just to be accepted. Point being, I wrote half of this post in my head months ago, but never sat down to get it finished.

Rocking my new body

So, here goes. Back in February/March I was still having a somewhat rough time getting around. My pelvis was doing merely alright. I had been working on specific things that were supposed to help my abs heal from pregnancy and doing some light yoga regularly, trying to get my strength and stability back after rough SPD (symphysis pubis disfunction). That's basically a term that just refers to when your joints holding the several bones that make up your pelvis have loosened and become unstable. This can lead to lots of pain.

Some people (and I'm guessing these are the ones with only minor loosening) swear by a chiropractor to help them. Which, if you bones just end up a bit misaligned, makes sense. But, if you're overall plagued by constant shifting back and forth of your major stability center while walking, and getting up and down from chairs or floor, or going up and down stairs or any climbing...this really puts a damper on your mobility. And mine had improved after Jade's birth, much more and more quickly than after Legan, but not enough.

And, I didn't have consistent or very good insurance coverage, nor any real understanding of whether a pelvic Physical Therapist (PT) could even help me. I hear a lot about pelvic PT for incontinence or sexual issues after pregnancy and birth, but not much about healing up SPD, as most things I read suggested that it just magically goes away after birth. Yeah, no.

But, two things helped me to take a different approach, that seems to have finally worked, and helped me.

First, I have a friend with pretty severe Diastasis Recti (DR), which is a gap in your abdominal muscles in the front, it usually occurs during pregancy and can need help closing back up. I did have a slight bit of this with Jade. My friend had a huge amount of it after her fourth baby, and years later hasn't been able to close it up all the way. But, she has seen therapists for it and helped it some. While we were talking one day about how our pregnancies really made a mess of parts of our bodies, she brought up that she really needs to work on her DR more, and that she really does feel a lot better when she focuses on her posture.

Secondly, I read I think just ONE article that really tied in DR with overall pelvic issues. It got me thinking and wondering if I worked on my slight DR, if that would really help my SPD too. I figured at the very least, I would have one less thing really causing me problems.

I did some minor searching of things to do for DR, but found a ton of conflicting things. So I decided just to focus on one thing. Posture. Sitting, standing, and especially walking appropriately, with extra focus on using my transverse abdominus muscle to hold my lower belly in while moving. I started with just trying to focus on it when walking across a room or driving in my car, and gradually expanded it to the overwhelming majority of the time I am awake. Just trying to ask my body and muscles to put themselves in their correct places.

It really made a huge difference. Only 3 weeks after I started I could walk around my house and up and down the stairs and carry kids around for a long time without my pelvis aching. I think it was only 6-8 weeks after I started posture work I tried rock climbing again. I was able to get up walls. Still had a few moments where I was obviously asking my pelvis to work too hard (asking one foot to support too much weight when it was too far above or to the side of its normal alignment when standing still), but in general I could do it. After spending months trying other exercises, to have so much success in a few weeks of just moving mindfully and trying to stay aligned...I was over the moon.

I was able to start running.

And now it's been several months. Jade is a year old. And I am competing in a half marathon (ok, competing is almost a joke, I just want to finish without any injury) in two weeks.

I engage my core, I work on pulling my belly button towards my spine when moving around. I make sure it's not my oblique muscles doing it. I check that by swaying my shoulders and upper torso around a bit, side to side, while I'm holding my belly button in. The swaying shouldn't change up the transverse abdominus (TA) muscle, but it uses the obliques. If your obliques are holding it in and you try to use them to sway, it feels stiff and impossible to do both things at once. Also, your obliques exist from your shoulders down, whereas the TA is only waist down. I can mostly only feel mine engage below the belly button.

So, that was my secret. Standing with good posture.

It sounds so silly. But it really helped.

I'm not trying to tell anyone else NOT to see or listen to a doctor, but I'm offering something really easy you can try while you figure out who to see, or how to see them. I laughed at thinking of seeing a pelvic PT, because....they operate mostly during normal business hours, and I have two young kids and no childcare, and can't afford any, lol.

Posture to fix my "mommy belly." At least, mostly. The skin is still all stretched out scrotum style. I want to have a tummy tuck one day, even a mini tummy tuck even, to address that. But, for now I have not-sexy higher waisted underwear and pants to at least hold it still when I laugh or run so that it's not jiggling and irritating me.

***quick reminder/disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, physical therapist, or anyone accredited in solving birth or any other injuries. Just sharing the things that worked for me. ***

In the mean time, I've lost maybe only 4-6 lbs, but 2-3" around, and gotten stronger from our training runs and cross training.

I am strong again. Which is really what I care about.