Health & Fitness The Newsletter About Achieving and Maintaining Optimal Well-Being
October 2020
WHAT IS WOMEN’S HEALTH PHYSICAL THERAPY?
As physical therapists, we are trained to comprehensively assess a patient’s musculoskeletal system and find the causes that drive pain or discomfort that make day-to-day activities painful or challenging. Women’s health physical therapy is no different -- it is the assessment of the pelvic floor muscles and how they are impacting things like bowel and bladder function, sexual dysfunction, and even orthopedic issues such as hip, low back, or pelvic pain. Especially after child birth, women expect (or at least aren’t surprised) to leak urine when laughing, coughing, or jumping on a trampoline. Although this is incredibly common, it is not in fact normal and indicates that the pelvic floor muscles aren’t doing their job! Pelvic floor therapy, though, is not only for women with urinary incontinence or clearly defined pelvic pain. Low back pain after pregnancy may be due to the separation of the abdominal muscles and may benefit from physical therapy intervention. Nagging hip, tailbone, or sacroiliac joint (the bottommost part of the spine where it meets the hip bones) pain that hasn’t responded well to traditional therapy may be a reason to seek out a women’s health physical therapist. The pelvic diaphragm is responsible for supporting the pelvis, supporting internal organs (such as the bladder and uterus), participating in sexual function, stabilizing and helping with load transfer to and from the trunk, and playing an important role in posture and breathing. Just like other body parts, the pelvic floor can become tight and painful, and this may lead to painful intercourse, pain with placing a tampon, having a pelvic exam performed, or even urinary retention and difficulty emptying the bladder. It is possible that the pelvic floor muscles are too tight and cause urinary leakage, as well. A tight muscle is not always a strong muscle. Alternatively, a deconditioned, injured, or weak pelvic floor will also struggle to do its job -- the pelvic floor has a lot of jobs! Women’s health patients follow the same recovery process as all other patients — a three-phase process to relieve pain and discomfort, restore function to tissue, and return the patient to their prior activities before the pain. We first want to identify the driver or cause of the pain and relieve symptoms through improving tissue quality. For pelvic floor therapy, this may mean working on scar tissue from an episiotomy or stitching after childbirth, working on tight muscles to release, and teaching the patient about alternate products that may work better for their tissues. We then work to restore function by strengthening muscles as appropriate and teaching techniques
to improve awareness of the pelvic floor muscles and decrease muscular tightness independently. Our final goal is to return to activities without dysfunction. That might mean leaving the house without having to go to the bathroom first for fear of leakage, going to yoga class without urinary leakage, or lifting a baby out of the crib without low back pain. How do you know if women’s health physical therapy is appropriate for you? If you have one or more of the following symptoms, you may benefit from an evaluation from a women’s health physical therapist. If you have ever fallen on your tailbone or experienced tailbone pain, have had pain with intercourse or immediately after, have any of the following urinary symptoms: accidental loss of urine, feeling unable to completely empty your bladder, having the urge to void just a few minutes after previously voiding, pain with urination, or difficulty starting or stopping urine, have experienced pelvic pain (in genitals, perineum, pubic or bladder area), wake up two or more times to urinate, or experience a pelvic heaviness or sensation of pelvic organs slipping/falling out. These symptoms do not have to be accepted as normal and can often be improved with physical therapy intervention. Overall, the pelvic floor is involved in many body functions, which when not operating optimally, significantly disrupt one’s quality of life. This is unfortunate because there are some simple conservative answers that do not involve medication or surgery. The physical therapy solution at Full Potential for the pelvic floor addresses the cause of your pain and urinary leakage through the correction of alignment, muscle tightness, and weakness along with muscle retraining and education. This type of help reestablishes the control and relief to enjoy life again. If you are experiencing the symptoms mentioned above, talk to your doctor about a referral to Full Potential. Do you need more information? Look at our website, fullpotentialpt.com, and review the women’s health section. We even have free consults to see if PT can help you. Full Potential is here for you in so many ways, all you have to do is make a phone call to start the process. To a Better Future, Amanda Collins, Doctor of PT Women’s Health Specialist
www.fullpotentialpt.com
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