Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy for Overactive Bladder in Grand Rapids

January 9, 2022 bladder overactive bladder Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy urge incontinence urinary incontinence

If You Think You Have A Small Bladder and You are Always Going to the Bathroom More Often than Every 2-4 Hours, You may Benefit from Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy for Overactive Bladder. We are Right Here in Grand Rapids and We Specialize in this Condition!

Individuals who have overactive bladder may be urinating as often as every hour, or more. A good, healthy bladder should be able to quietly fill up with urine over 2 to 4 hours time and then allow you to calmly walk to the bathroom to urinate. It turns out that Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy for Overactive Bladder should be your first place to start to get treatment! Yes, it is even in the clinical treatment guidelines that Pelvic PT should be FIRST!

How Do I Know if I have an Overactive Bladder? What is Normal?

Individuals who have an overactive bladder experience a strong and sudden urge to urinate. A healthy, normal bladder fills up quietly and allows you to calmly hold your urine for 2-4 hours. Individuals with overactive bladder often finish urinating and still feel like they could go again. Our pelvic floor physical therapy for overactive bladder alleviates these problems. Our treatment is highly effective and does not involve any medications. In fact, many of our patients get off of medications because our pelvic floor PT allows their bladder to function normally again. We think this is a good thing because medications are costly, have side effects and are something people tell us they don’t want to rely upon. Give us a call at (616) 516-4334 to speak with our knowledgeable staff to get started.

The Harmful Effects of Overactive Bladder

We have great sympathy for individuals who deal with an overactive bladder. We have had patients tell us that they cannot schedule a much-anticipated trip to Europe because they know they would be on a tour bus for hours and they would not be able to do that without urinary incontinence. We’ve had patients tell us that they feel “chained to a toilet” and unable to be ambitious with their career because their bladder interrupts their productivity every hour. We’ve had individuals tell us that they worry their bladder will get out of control and they might wet themselves in front of everyone. We have had patients to whom this has happened: complete loss of urine, publically at a party. The psychological effects of this problem cannot be minimized. If you go to a urogynecologist, in fact, they will usually question you on how much you perceive your condition is a “bother” in your life. The answers are usually “quite a huge bother.”

High Quality Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy is an Excellent Treatment for Overactive Bladder. The American Urological Association (of which we are a member!) has guidelines from 2019 that recommend pelvic floor therapy as a First-Line Treatment for your OAB.

Here at Purple Mountain Physical Therapy, pelvic floor treatment is our specialty. We are experts at treating all varieties of bladder problems, including overactive bladder. We also treat bladder pain conditions (such as interstitial cystitis), urinary retention, urinary incontinence and nocturia (getting up at night to pee). When you choose to see us, you are choosing the highest quality of expert care to give you the strongest chance of getting your bladder back under control. Give us a call at (616) 516-4334 to chat with our knowledgeable staff to get your questions answered!

Will You Be Teaching Me How to Do a Kegel?

No, probably not. Most individuals that we evaluate are found to have a problem with high tone pelvic floor. This means that their pelvic floor muscles are all tensed up and giving a signal to their bladder and spinal cord that they need to pee. All.The.Time. We don’t want to get you doing kegels because they will tense up the muscles some more.

Our treatments are, instead, directed at resolving your underlying pelvic floor dysfunction and myriad other contributions to your condition, such as your hips, back, neck, abdominal wall. You may read elsewhere online that you need to be doing kegels if you have overactive bladder. We could not disagree more vehemently and we are willing to publicly debate anyone who claims otherwise. We are experts at treating pelvic floor dysfunction and bladder disorders and our clinical experience, coupled with our professional involvement in organizations such as AUGS (the American Urogynecologic Society) and IPPS (The International Pelvic Pain Society) and ICS (The International Continence Society) give us unparalleled clinical expertise into treating your condition.

Our holistic treatment addresses any myofascial restrictions from neck to feet and also includes bladder control strategies, bladder training, pelvic floor muscle retraining, fluid management and bowel-directed optimization to address any constipation or diarrhea problems that may be setting off your bladder. Connect with us to learn more about our care!

Rest assured, that when you choose Purple Mountain Physical Therapy for your pelvic floor PT for overactive bladder, you will receive customized treatment based specifically on your body’s findings. We do not provide cookie-cutter treatments that are ineffective.

What Does Pelvic Floor PT for Overactive Bladder Involve? Each Treatment Session Effectively Gives You A “Bladder Balancing Treatment”.

Our treatment is holistic and utilizes multiple clinical principles that help calm your bladder. We have found that other providers do not understand the bladder and are not trained in these treatment methods. Therefore, if you have failed to improved even though you have seen other providers, please understand that when you choose Purple Mountain PT for your pelvic floor PT for overactive bladder, you are getting care that is entirely different than you have received before.

Every organ has something called Viscerosomatic Convergence; our treatment taps into this to calm your bladder. Viscerosomatic convergence is most commonly understood for the heart organ. If someone experiences a heart attack they may feel pain down their left arm. Thus, the left arm and the heart organ work in partnership. The bladder organ works in partnership with various areas of your body, including your spine, hips, abdomen and thighs. Therefore, we know that we can optimize your bladder if we evaluate and treat these areas. Our treatment is hands-on, using advanced manual therapy skills to address fascia, muscles, joints and tissues that have relationships with your bladder. Call us at (616) 516-4334 and get to know more about our treatment plan for you.

Will You Mostly Be Treating My Pelvic Floor?

The term “pelvic floor therapy” is actually misleading. No, your treatment is never isolated to your pelvic floor. In fact, our holistic care is the ONLY way we have to get your feeling better. If we limited your treatment to your pelvic floor, we know your overactive bladder will not change that much. Instead, our holistic care directs treatment to all the areas related to your bladder. We treat your back, hips, thighs, posture, abdominal wall, scar tissue (including cesarean scars overlying the bladder), and visceral mobility (do you have endometriosis that may be contributing to your overactive bladder? We treat this!).

However, we do need to treat your pelvic floor muscles. As we stated, they usually have high tone and spasm and need to be retrained to calm down. A 2016 study found the pelvic floor muscle training reduced symptoms and complaints related to overactive bladder and also increased quality of life. That’s our goal: to boost your ability to enjoy your life. We have found that people tell us that their anxiety or depression ease as their bladder control improves.

By providing you holistic and comprehensive pelvic floor therapy for your overactive bladder, you will find that your bladder progressively improves its ability to fill up quietly, hold urine and calmly empty. To speak with our knowledgeable and caring staff, contact us here.

Our Pelvic Floor Treatments Are Research Proven to Help Overactive Bladder

The main symptoms of overactive bladder include urinary frequency, urgency and leakage. Some individuals also experience pelvic pain and lower quality of life. It is common for our patients to come to us with lower abdominal pain or some discomfort or awareness of the urethra. They also may have pain with intimacy. Some patients have on and off low back and they find this improves, also. We know that one known contributor to ongoing chronic low back pain is pelvic floor dysfunction; therefore, if you have overactive bladder, we will treat you pelvic floor dysfunction and low back pain. We expect all of these symptoms to improve with our pelvic floor PT for your overactive bladder. Connect with us here to speak with our staff about getting your plan of care started.

Am I A Good Candidate for Pelvic Floor PT for My Overactive Bladder?

Yes. If you have overactive bladder, pelvic floor PT is actually one of the first places you should start. In fact, of all of your therapeutic options, pelvic PT gives you the best chance of resolving urinary leakage and the problem of running to the bathroom all the time. If pelvic PT cannot help you (which is rare) then you would go back to your urologist and talk about other options, which may include Botox injections, medications, surgery for sacral nerve stimulation. If you truly are having trouble getting results from pelvic PT then we would want you to pair your pelvic PT treatment with mind/body care so that you can calm your nervous system and implement different habits/techniques to react to your bladder. Results are not overnight, but we do find that our patients experience improvements in the first few appointments. Each appointment builds on the progress from the prior appointment and we partner with you to find the best path forward.