Joint nutrition

[Shannon]

The first posts are always the hardest, right? So I'll just jump on in with no introduction or lead in :)

I'm almost 37 weeks pregnant. I've been having fun trying to minimize my discomforts with nutrition, figuring that can only be good for the baby. The latest project has been connective tissue. The symptoms I'm looking at are my creaky knees (which started a few months after dd, age 3yo was born), ouchy pubic symphysis, popping back, and major abdominal separation (diastasis recti). The others are my lack of stretch marks (they showed up around 38+ weeks with dd) and dd's seemingly lax ligaments - she has very flat feet, weird posture (just like BIL and FIL) and is crazy flexible.

It all started when I read in my biochem book about amino acid metabolism and Krebs cycle. Serine is converted to glycine, using B6. Glycine is a major amino acid in connective tissue. So I tried increasing my B6 and sure enough, my knees started creaking less! Then, a week or two later, the effect went away and I was back where I started.

A few weeks later, it hit me in the middle of the night (insomnia is usually my first warning sign that my nutrients are out of whack). All those cravings for gelatin might just have something to do with how much my back was suddenly popping as I rolled over. So I made up some gelatin treats, and voila, the creaking started going away again, as did the back popping. This time, I had dh listen as I was climbing the stairs each night, and he concurred. Noticeably less noise, woo hoo! And then it stalled out again :(

My next google search had me looking up nipple sensitivity (dd's nursing through the pregnancy) and low and behold, high progesterone levels are associated with both increased nipple sensitivity and bone pain. At this point, my pubic symphysis was really starting to bug me. So I tried supplementing molybdenum to help out sulfoxidation, which clears out steroid hormones. Nipple pain decreased (thank goodness) but toning contractions increased (turns out progesterone inhibits those). And the pubic symphysis stopped hurting! The other interesting parts about this piece of the puzzle are that nipple sensitivity was my corn reaction when we trialed it back in first and second trimester - and corn is usually high in sulfites which need to be processed through sulfoxidation. And that sulfate (the product of sulfoxidation) is used in abundance in connective tissue as well.

Now I can't say *why* it's working for sure, but so long as I keep up on the gelatin (a couple tablespoons or more of the powder a day, I like it mixed into hot drinks) and on the molybdenum (4, not 3, 150mcg tabs from Country Life) my pubic bone doesn't hurt nearly as much. I'm hoping against hope that with any luck, these will be the nutrients my body needs in order to heal and rebuild the abdominal separation once the baby comes.

[Amy]

I'm so glad you posted about this. Just the other night I was remembering my intense pubic pain from my last pregnancies. The interesting for me is that I have never had any abdominal separation. I have been historically low in molybdenum so it doesn't surprise me that this is one way I could have experienced the deficiency.

[Amy]

Oh just finished reading your post. I had extreme nipple pain while nursing my two year old, and add very little BH contractions.

You rock Shannon.

[Shannon]

Hmm, so if you didn't have separation, but likely had sulfate issues, that points me somewhere else for the separation. Good to know. I'm still leaning towards low copper, since it's used for elastin cross-linking. But supping copper scares me! There are so many warnings against it!