What is Pelvic Health Physical Therapy?

Thank Goodness pelvic health is more commonly talked about and more acceptable to discuss. Men and women experience pelvic floor symptoms throughout their lifetime. It has almost become a “buzzword” to discuss your pelvic floor or how to treat it. But, what is pelvic floor physical therapy? Why would I need it? What does treatment actually look like? I gotchu. Continue reading below for an outline of what is is, why you would go and the down and dirty of what treatment looks like:

What is Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?
- PFPT (pelvic floor physical therapy) is specialized treating for treating symptoms related to the pelvic floor or possibly caused by the pelvic floor not functioning optimally. It can include treatment to your pelvic floor muscles, pelvis, abdomen, spine, hips, rib cage, organs… The list goes on. Your PT should have specialized training in assessing your pelvic floor locally as well as knowledge of how other parts of your body may be impacting your pelvic floor and causing your symptoms.

Why would I need PFPT?
- Honestly, the reasons could be endless. Pelvic Health Physical Therapists are uniquely qualified and educated to address SO MANY symptoms patients have. For the purposes of this post, we will stick to the basics. Pelvic, bladder, urethral, rectal pain in men AND women, pregnancy and post partum pain, pain with sex, pain with ejaculation. urinary incontinence, urinary urgency, bowel incontinence, bowel urgency, urinary frequency, bowel frequency, painful C-section scars, low back pain/ SIJ pain…… I mentioned these are the basics, right? Check out my page Conditions Treated for a long, but still not exhaustive list. You can also always Contact Me by clicking this link to ask questions about you personally!

Ok, down to the details….

What does treatment actually look like?
- PFPT treatment combines regular physical therapy with specialized assessment of your pelvic floor muscles (usually). So, in MY clinic our evaluations are 90 minutes long. This means we sit and we talk first. I get to figure out your life story, all the symptoms you have, ask you about ones you didn’t know were connected (do you have plantar fasciitis and bladder pain? lets talk….) understand other medical conditions you may or may not have, what treatment you have tried in the past, what has helped and what hasnt. Then, we look at what we priorize next based on our converstaion. This may be your spine, your hips, your rib cage, your abdominal wall or your pelvic floor.
- Pelvic floor assessment is internal and external assessment of the pelvic floor muscles (its far less traumatic than and OBGYN exam or Prostate exam, scouts honor). I insert one finger vaginally or rectally and ask you to kegel, bear down, cough, I press on various muscles and see what you feel during the process. This helps guide and match what I found externally, with what I found internally. Then we treat. Everything is done with and obscene amount of consent and if you either revoke consent during assessment/ treatment or never give it, then we modify and treat you as best as we can with the information gathered in a way your are comfortable with.

• ALWAYS make sure you communicate with your PFPT. You will never hurt our feelings by telling us to stop, don’t touch you or you aren’t ready for something we discuss. Boo, its your body 100% of the time, always.

• If you never consent to internal assessment, no worries. Odds are you will still make progress with PT. Just talk to your PFPT and go from there.

  I look forward to the opportunity to support you in every way I can! Contact me to schedule an appointment.