My Pubic Symphysis Dysfunction // Sweet As Mae

June 07, 2016


Hello Sweeties! Today I'm going to just have a little chat to you guys. It's about something that I thought I should address, and if you're not interested that's fine
as it is a personal/lifestyle post, but you might want to have a quick skim through because it does affect my blogging. Not too sure how to start and this post will probably be full of rambles and backstories, but it would mean a lot to me if you guys read this :)

I'm a dancer. Most of you will know this already, but for those who don't I dance a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I dance both during and after school everyday and have weekend rehearsals, including flexibility, conditioning and technique classes. I'm not trying to be boastful, I'm just giving you guys an idea of the physical activity I go through. I have trained very hard to get to where I am today. 

Dancers get pains every so often. They're kind of just labelled "dance pain". That's when you get some sort of physical pain either during or after dancing that isn't painful enough to need checking out but is just a sort of thing you can get in dance. The sort you push through and brush it off. One of my biggest regrets was not paying enough attention to my "dance pains".

I've had a knee pain in my right leg for about 3 years. I went to physio a couple of years ago, did a few weeks of sessions and thought I had it sorted. It went away for a little while. About 6 months ago, I felt it come back. And it got worse and worse. That was one of my "dance pains".

This next pain I didn't know was related to dance until now. I always get a painful nagging in my lower right groin area, around the appendix. I have a few other health issues (which I won't go into today) and for years doctors have just said it must be related to those and it's a chronic pain without a solution right now. I have lost a lot of faith in doctors over the years.

I finally told my parents about my knee pain and how it was coming back and quite bad. In April I went to my first physiotherapy of this year. A couple weeks of sessions in, after a few adjustments and some research about my two different pains, my physio wondered if they could be connected. Next session came, and I was told I could have Pubic Symphysis Dysfunction. I still remember the day. I didn't know what it was, and neither did my mum. 

Quick human anatomy lesson - the Pubic Symphysis is the little joint that connects each side of your pelvis. When this isn't strong enough or isn't functioning properly, your pelvis alignment goes off. In my case, the Pubic Symphysis jammed my tail bone and has caused my right side of pelvis to not move as it should. But how was this connected to my pains? Pubic Symphysis also inflames a ton of muscles surrounding your pelvis. My Adductor muscles (located around the groin) were particularly inflamed, so that is the cause of my severe groin pain. There's another large muscle around the pelvis (I'm unsure of the name) that stretches right from your groin to your knee. That triggers knee pain. The more my physio explained Pubic Symphysis, the more my pain symptoms added up. I was diagnosed with the condition week later. 

So what does Pubic Symphysis Dysfunction mean? What's the treatment? For starters, I'm not allowed to do jumps, intense running or ANY flexibility (splits, kicks, leg holds; anything over 90 degrees) whatsoever for 4-6 months. That may not seem like much, but for a dancer who has spent years with flexibility classes daily it's a struggle. I was devastated. I am also not allowed to do intense contortion work or acrobatics possibly ever again, if so very little. The condition is quite rare in children too. 

 You can't fix this with pain killers and a bag of ice. Since I have a rather severe end of the condition, it means physio and osteopath appointments weekly, and basically you need to stabalise the pelvis, which takes time. I do a lot of stretches and exercises morning and night to help loosen my muscles and strength work for my pelvis will start once I have more control of the pain. I have had a total of 10 sets of acupuncture as well to release muscles and stop the severe pain. Acupuncture itself is very painful. The pain varies on your condition, they use it for many different things, but for me the muscles spasm a lot as they are released, which feels like the worst cramp ever. Very painful, but I'm not complaining - the results are fantastic and my pain is a whole lot more manageable now. 

One thing I was confused about when I got the news was how did I get this condition? I'm always so careful in dance and so are my teachers. Warm ups and warm downs every lesson. I'll give you a quick backstory, I'm not naturally flexible. Never have been never will. Not tooting my own horn, but now I am quite flexible. But that's due to hard work and dedication. I am very careful with flexibility now, but when I was young I wasn't so careful. I probably pushed a bit too hard. So basically I had overworked my pelvis, and since I'm not naturally flexible my pelvis wasn't strong enough to support itself. But it wasn't just dance. I have a massive medical history. I've had a ton of falls and injuries and my whole body has just tightened up over the years. That contributed to my weakness of my pelvis. 

The good news about my condition? I have a lot more free time since I've had to cut out a ton of my dance classes. So what to do? My second passion, blogging! I will now be posting THREE times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I have a ton of cool posts sorted and if I get into a good rhythm I'll try to continue this even when I'm back into dancing. I'm so so excited for all the posts!

If you've reads this far, it means a lot to me and I love your patience haha! This post wasn't a pity party, I just wanted to share my issue so you all understood it and maybe learnt something from it too. I know there are conditions so much worse out there, so I'm so grateful I can do a little bit of dance and I will recover from this. I love you all very much.

What's your favourite sport?



Stay Sweet,
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2 comments

  1. It awful you have to give up something you love, happy you will be blogging more frequently though xx
    www.blossomofhope.blogspot.com

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    1. It is very difficult, but I'll get through it. Thanks for reading lovely :)

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