Anyone experience symphysis pubis dysfunction during their pregnancy? And know where to get help?

I recently discovered that the pains I have been having are not a result of round ligament pain, or other "normal" pregnancy growing pains, but rather something called symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD). A couple sites that describe the problem are as follows:

http://www.plus-size-pregnancy.org/pubicpain.htm (this pain is not restricted to plus size women, so don't let the website URL fool you!)
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/antenatalhealth/physicalhealth/pel...

It's extremely painful to change positions when sleeping, painful to go up and down stairs, painful to get up from a sitting position, painful to walk, basically there is pain in the pubic bone area (for me it's only on the left side) all the time except for when not moving. However, sitting too long is not good either, because it makes the getting up even more painful! The best advice I've seen and experienced for us that are bound to a desk for work, is to get up often from your desk but for short periods of time. This keeps the area not as stiff and therefore less painful.

These websites pretty much recommend chiropractic and osteopathic treatments but I don't know if I can find good treatments in Beijing. My question is for anyone else who has experienced this while pregnant in Beijing: Does anyone know where and how I can get help for this? I started experiencing this pain at 4 months, but passed it off as "normal" pains when my OBGYN did the same. However, I'm now at 28 weeks and it got considerably worse last week after a pre-natal yoga class. A word of advice to any pregnant women who may be experiencing SPD: don't do any of the one-legged poses in yoga (although I still think that pre-natal yoga is generally a good idea)! After that class I started having trouble going up and down stairs and all the other pains have increased exponentially. It also gets worse if I've been walking for longish period of time, but gets a bit better with rest. Since I still have 12 weeks to go, I need to get treatment before it gets much worse!

Any advice appreciated!

Thanks!

turtlefang

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Re: Anyone experience symphysis pubis dysfunction during their p

have you tried a maternity support belt?? Supposed to work wonders!

Liora Pearlman Moderator, Beiing Organic Consumers' Association (BOCA) http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/beijing_organic_consumers
lioralourie
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