Posts Tagged ‘Pregnancy’

Pelvic Girdle Pain in Pregnancy

Monday, August 29th, 2011 by David

What is Pelvic Girdle Pain?

Written by Dr. David Howard – B.Sc. (Clinical Sci.), M.H.Sc. (Osteopathy), B.App.Sc (Human Movement) from Pascoe Vale Osteopathy located in Pascoe Vale, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Pelvic girdle pain is a set of very commonly occurring symptoms in pregnancy and includes the conditions of sacroiliac joint dysfunction, sacroiliac joint instability, pubic symphysis dysfunction and diastasis symphysis pubis.

These conditions are all linked as they have a very similar set of symptoms but with differing intensities and primary source of pain. They can also occur together because the anatomy of the pelvis is like a ‘bowl’ with all of the bones connected in a circle. If one of the joints is affected or dysfunctional, the other joints are also likely to be affected and cannot function normally. For simplicity, the conditions are named according to where the majority of the pain is being experienced. In most cases, there will also be symptoms occurring at the other pelvic joints simultaneously. (more…)

The cause, treatment and prevention of Sciatica

Monday, May 25th, 2009 by David

Sciatica

Written by Dr. David Howard – B.Sc. (Clinical Sci.), M.H.Sc. (Osteopathy), B.App.Sc (Human Movement) from Pascoe Vale Osteopathy located in Pascoe Vale, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

back painSciatica is a set of symptoms rather than a specific diagnosis. The symptoms are generally buttock pain and a sharp pain down the back of the thigh and sometimes into the calf.  Occasionally, when severe, there may be numbness, muscular weakness and tingling in the leg.

The sciatic nerve is the largest and longest nerve in the body. It originates from 5 smaller nerves from the spinal cord in the lumbar spine (lower back) and passes through the pelvis, buttock and into the leg.

The symptoms of sciatica are produced by pressure onto the nerve which decreases its ability to function and causes pain. There are many different causes of sciatica as there are many different parts of the body where it can become compressed.

Here I will outline a few of these causes: (more…)