Week 12: It's a lot like being stabbed with a knife

I was all ready to write a post about the terrible sciatica I’ve been having. Only, as it turns out, I haven’t been having sciatica at all. (So good thing I didn’t write that post.) That would have been embarrassingly misinformed. What I have been suffering from instead is SI joint pain.

What’s SI joint pain, you ask? It’s basically where an invisible person stabs you in the back with a large knife anytime you move. It’s really special.

For example, you’ll be taking a shower. There you are, minding your own business, shaving your legs, trying to be a good person—when, out of nowhere, you’re blinded by a horrible pain. The pain is unbearable, to the point where you’re pretty sure you’re going to pass out. And part of you wants to pass out, just so you don’t have to feel the excruciating pain anymore. But then, you’re thinking that passing out in a bathtub with the water running is probably not a good choice for your overall well-being. So what do you do? You stand there, completely frozen with pain, and basically hope for the best. Then you vow to never shower again, as long as you live.

SI joint pain also strikes when you: stand up, sit down (sometimes it hurts so bad that you can’t sit down to use the toilet; like I said, it’s a special time), walk, get into the car, get out of the car, or move your body at all, ever.

I didn’t have SI joint pain with my first two pregnancies, but it came on like gangbusters with my third—and then it never really went away. Between when I had the third baby and when I got pregnant this time, I would still occasionally be stopped dead in my tracks with that old, familiar pain on my right side. And now that I’m pregnant again, well, now we just get to increase those incidents by a million percent.

I go to the physical therapist twice a week for him to put my hips back where they belong, which is apparently what’s causing the pain in the first place. He works his magic and four seconds after he’s done, my hips have fallen back out of place again. Because pregnancy is the best. The physical therapist explained that when you’re pregnant, your ligaments get all loosey-goosey (that’s a technical medical term), and that’s why nothing stays where it’s supposed to be. Which I get is ideal for, you know, getting the baby out when the time comes, but in the meantime, it’s pretty unpleasant.

From what I understand, there’s nothing that can be done to fix it until I stop being pregnant, and it’s not like they let pregnant women take any of the good drugs. As best I can tell, Tylenol is nothing but sugar pills. Great, thanks for that.

And that’s pretty much where I’m at.