When Pain Gets Worse: The Hidden Breakthrough Behind the Setback

What if your client’s pain getting worse is actually a breakthrough waiting to happen? In this episode, Lynn shares a striking case where escalating pain revealed the real issue wasn’t physical at all—but an emotional story held deep in the tissues. You’ll hear how this postpartum client’s healing unfolded only after she released the belief that she had to “do it all alone”. Lynn shares how to identify these limiting beliefs to transform setbacks into powerful openings for profound healing.

✨ Episode Highlights:

• The hidden meaning behind worsening pain
• How emotions and beliefs get stored in the body
• Turning flare-ups into healing breakthroughs
• Techniques to uncover what the body is really saying
• Why curiosity—not control—is key to lasting change

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Transcript

@0:09 - Lynn Schulte, PT (lynnschultept@gmail.com)

Hello, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Birth Healing Summit podcast. And today I want to talk to you about what to do when the pain comes back worse.

So you have a client that you're seeing, they're in pain, you work on them, and they come back the next time you see them and say, oh, my pain got so much worse.

And this happened to me actually in one of my clients that I've been seeing. She has a more complicated case.

And I originally saw her back in May of this year. And she was four months postpartum when I saw her.

She had a vaginal birth, it was unmedicated. She complained that her contractions got so bad bad at the end that she felt like her pelvis was pulling him.

The baby did get stuck in the canal and she did get him out. She was only pushing for 45 minutes.

However, she just felt like that was the worst pain of her entire life. And she does feel like her hips are wider.

She doesn't have any bladder leakage or as normal. You know, bowel movements are okay. She does have a history of low back and herniated discs, and she's been treated by a chiro in the past.

And her current symptoms are shooting pain down the sides of her legs, more the right side than the left.

It's worse getting out of bed in the morning. And lifting makes it works as well. Stretching also makes it worse.

She does do the Peloton to kind of keep movement going. And she says that sometimes makes it feel better.

And when I first saw her for that first time, her left is she almost played, I think. Let's say

Both were actually really splayed. She was in sacral flexion. There was a big compression of her lumbosacral junction and her right uterine ligaments were tight or EAS was tight inferiorly.

She had okay strength of her pelvic floor muscle and even supine and in standing, but it wasn't reflexive. And when I saw her the next time, almost a month later, she said that she was originally 80% better right after that appointment, but now she's only 30% better.

And she is now complaining of shooting pains into her right hamstring, a lot of hamstring pain on the right, a little bit of pain at the limbo sacral junction, dull pain when she's sitting and then also having some numbness and tingling in her heel.

And she feels like her core is getting stronger, but she's still having all this pain. And when I I I talked.

her about it. At some point, I forgot to write it down in my notes. I then saw her a couple of weeks later.

And at some point in this, she decided to go horseback riding. And the horseback riding definitely made her worse.

And so I'm like, yeah, all that compression and jarring on your, your sacrum and your, your lumbar spine with, with possible disc issues.

Yeah, not the best choice postpartum. So that was what a contributing factor for her. Um, and I have been seeing her on and off.

Um, I, she missed the whole month of August, but then she came back in September and she's been seeing some other practitioners.

And she said her chiropractor, um, felt like it was a pure pharma. So I'm like, okay, great. Let's listen into your body and see what your body has to say.

Okay. And there was a spot at S2. S2. S2. That I got very drawn to with my hand and I was on the right side and it was very, a focal point that was like, help me here.

And so I worked on that area and just, she had tension more on that right side, right coccygeus, levator ani muscle, like the whole lateral edge of that sacrum was just thicker.

It felt like it might've been sheared a little bit. So I was working with the sacrum a lot. And in that session, um, uh, the right side definitely had more tension to it, but it was, it was letting go.

It was, I wasn't forcing it. The tissues were releasing and I felt intuitively that there was something more being held in that tissue, but we were also running out of time in the session to go dive into it.

And so I didn't dive into it and I just, um, I, I'm. I'm like, okay, well, the tissues are releasing, they're relaxing, okay, let's see what happens here, and I knew it was right, you know, the right side that was tense, and I knew that there was something deeper being held in there, but again, we ran out of time, so I just kind of let it go.

Well, two days later, I get a phone call from her saying, Lynn, I am in so much pain. Can you help me, please?

The pain got worse after that session. So she comes in, and I'm like, so what happened after that session?

She's like, nothing, nothing, and as we dove into that right side, and started working with what was coming up for her in those tissues, it was around her partner supporting her in her labor, and she didn't feel that he was very supportive during that labor experience for her.

And, um... And then it came out that actually two days after that session where the muscles let go and when her pain got worse, that she actually had an interaction with her partner and she had asked her partner to help out and watch the baby so she could go do something.

And the partner didn't give her a reply of, Oh, sure, honey, no problem. It was more of a, well, I'm not sure I'm going to be available.

I'm not sure I can do that. And that's what actually, in my opinion, activated her pain. And, and so that right posterior side is support from the masculine.

And as we dove deeper into what was really being held on that right side on a memory of her parents getting divorced when she was young happened.

And, um, she explained. That her parents basically both checked out, and she took on the caregiving for her sister, and that was pretty traumatic for her, but it also took on, she took on the limiting belief that I have to do it all on my own, that I don't get support from the others, and that was what was playing out in her birth and in her marriage as well.

And so after all this came up in that, I'm going to call it the emergency session, because she wanted to be seen sooner than what we had scheduled, she went home after that and had a really beautiful discussion with her partner, and we shifted that, I have to do everything on my own, and opened her up to greater receiving, and things did shift with her partner.

The next time I saw her, she was still in pain. Unfortunately, that didn't let go of the pain. I do believe she's dealing with some bulging discs.

didn't That we need to address. But her partner, really, it shifted with her partner and the support that she was receiving in her life.

She feels much more supported by her husband, and that was pretty cool. So then a couple of fast forward another month later, she's still dealing with this pain and her doctor's like, go see this PT.

So she goes and sees this PT and this PT thinks it's her coccyx and that her coccyx is rotated and side bent and really out of place.

And so she comes back in to see me and she tells me this. I'm like, okay, well, let's really tune into that.

Well, I do my listening like I do all the time. And I did get drawn into that sacral coccygeal junction.

That was the area that lit up for me. That S2 area that I worked on that one time, that was gone.

That had resolved itself. But now it was down in the sacrum and coccyx. So I worked on that, and I didn't feel the rotation.

Maybe that other therapist was able to address that, but I did feel the pull to the right side, increased tension there.

And as I was internal, I work with the coccyx and the sacrum vaginally. I feel like I can get a good sense of that.

And while I was in there, I felt a bump on her right side, right at the, near the ILA.

And I didn't feel it on the other side. And I was like, huh, did you hear a pop or a crack during your birth?

And she's like, no. And I said, I wonder if you fractured your sacrum. And she goes, I wouldn't doubt it.

It was so painful. And I said, well, there's a bump right there. And she said, you know, that she didn't get x-rays or anything to that showed a fracture there.

But, you know, it's always, we do know in some MRI studies, research studies that they do find fractures of the.

The sacrum, fractures of the coccyx and sacro, the pubic bones, showing bruising and stuff. So it is possible. We need to keep that in mind.

This time in working with her tailbone and her coccyx, we went back to that moment in the birth where she felt all the pain.

She was laying left side lying. So the right side definitely did get more pressure, more force in the birth itself.

As she connected into that sacral coccyx junction, the feeling came up was, can't do this. And that is something that we shifted.

Now, mind you, I've been working with her on and off since May, and we have probably replayed and worked with this birth four or five different times.

And this last time it was, I can't do this. That's what was stuck in that birth. And what was important this time around was after we released that limiting belief, I just got this sense with the tissue that we needed to replay the birth in the way that she wanted it to.

She went ahead and repositioned herself in a different position in her mind and replayed the birth. And as I was still internal as she was doing this, and I just felt this like massive softening of the tissues.

And I said, did the baby just come out? And she's like, yeah, I did. And I said, wow, I really felt that softening.

And she said, yes, I did too. That was a completion of a replaying of the birth and all the tissues in there just felt super relaxed.

And when she got up off the table, she noticed that it was definitely lighter in that area. The coccyx and the sacrum were felt in a better position, less tension on that right side.

And as she was walking around, she did have less hamstring pain. She was still noticing. Seeing some numbness and tingling in her right foot, I said that might take some time to resolve, but this was, again, just another layer.

There's so many layers when the birth is as intense as this client experience. And so I share this case study with you to give you some insights into when the pain gets worse.

There's usually a deeper issue at play. You may have tried to release the pain without getting to the pain's job or why the pain is there in the first place.

I really felt when I was releasing that right side that there was something still being held there. But the reason I didn't, I wasn't forcing tissue in the tissues release.

So I let it go. And what was important is that it actually came up in her interaction with her husband.

And so I do believe that that experience. of her husband not stepping up to the plate and supporting her to be able to do what she needed to do and being ambivalent about that triggered that response on that right side that was being held in those tissues.

I feel that was the reason that the pain got worse. She wasn't able to come up with that right away, but as we really tuned into that right side, it kind of came out.

And so there's a deeper reason if the pain gets worse, guys, please go explore it and get curious with it and see what's really being held in the body in that area.

And so if that is something that you would like to learn more about, understand how to better do that with your clients, that is all covered in the Birth Healing Intensive Program.

And I would love to have you learn more about that and see if it is a right fit for you to join us next year for the next cohort.

And I would love to have you, if it is resonating with you, this. This is so powerful, so much fun, and really does help get you the best outcomes with your clients, even the challenging ones like this one is this case.

It's not straightforward. There's lots of layers to it. And we just need to keep plugging away and she's getting better.

And I know that she can find resolution of this. It's just going to take time. So thank you for letting me share that with you.

Thank you for listening. And again, if that birth healing intensive is something that interests you, please check into it.

There will be a link in the show notes. You can find it on my website, instituteforbirthhealing.com and put in an application.

We'll get on a call to make sure it's the right fit for you. And we'll see if you are interested in joining.

So please check it out. And I will look forward to seeing you all on the next episode. Please share this episode with your colleagues.

Anyone you feel might find this topic interesting. And here is to smoother burst, faster recoveries. And Let's go. Let's

And not letting the pain get worse. All right. Take care, everybody. Bye bye.