Author | Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT
We’ve got you covered! In this article we will detail 9 common signs and symptoms that you need pelvic floor therapy.
At Purple Mountain PT we specialize in providing pelvic health care for women, men and kids. And very often our patients tell us “I wish I knew about you years ago!” In fact, most patients have been living with pelvic floor symptoms for years before getting treatment. So, in an effort to raise awareness of pelvic floor dysfunction, we are giving you some tips here so you know when you should get treatment! If you are interested in learning more about our pelvic floor therapy program, contact us here.
First, where are the pelvic floor muscles & what do they do?
The pelvic floor muscles are a group of muscles that line the inside of your pelvic bone. They help support the pelvic organs that lie above them. They also help you with bladder and bowel function, both with holding stool and urine in and with releasing these. The pelvic floor muscles are important with sexual function, contributing to pleasure and responsiveness. They also help with lymphatic circulation of the pelvis.
Why would I need pelvic floor PT? Here we dive into 9 tips that something isn’t quite right in your pelvis.
Pelvic PT can help you if you notice the following:
1. Bladder control is not 100%!
You should never be leaking urine. Never! It is common in the world of moms to think it is normal to lose urine after having kids. This is not true and it is not acceptable to lose urine for the rest of your life. In fact, urinary incontinence is a risk factor for elderly women needing to move from their own home to a nursing home. Ladies, if you are leaking urine unexpectedly, you need to address this problem. It isn’t going to go away as you age, it is likely to get worse. If you have bladder control problems you need pelvic floor therapy; contact us here to learn more about our expert care.
2. Fecal incontinence or flatulence (gas) incontinence is occurring.
Fecal incontinence is just as concerning and in need of high quality pelvic PT. This is a private problem and most people don’t even mention it to their providers. It often begins as fecal smearing, maybe after child birth. Or perhaps after a prostatectomy. Initially it may only happen with liquidy stool, but if you have progressive worsening of your bowel control over time you may find loss of solid stool. If you are experiencing any fecal or flatulence incontinence, you deserve high quality pelvic PT to stop this problem. At Purple Mountain PT, we specialize in treating both bladder and bowel control problems. We find that often the pelvic floor muscles are dis-coordinated and asleep at the wheel, to so speak. They lack precision with firing, they are slow, they may be stiff and you may also have non-optimal habits that need to be modified. Our program for pelvic floor PT is comprehensive and will effectively address all of the contributing factors for your symptoms so that you can restore your bladder and bowel control. To learn more about how we can help you, contact us here.
3. Chronic constipation or difficulty evacuating your stool are signs pelvic PT can help you.
The ability to urinate and defecate are complex neuromotor processes. We often work with individuals who struggle with lifelong constipation. They may experience incomplete emptying, a constant feeling that they still need to defecate, loss of the urge to defecate, anal fissures or hemorrhoids. We work with you to identify what is going on with your pelvic floor muscles and abdominal wall that might be contributing to difficulty with emptying your bowels.
Chronic constipation usually involves pain and straining. Some of our patients must use their fingers in or around their perineum to support the region when they attempt to have a bowel movement. These patients often have pelvic floor dysfunction and would benefit from pelvic PT. In particular, we find that they often tighten or close their anal sphincter and pelvic floor muscles when they think they are relaxing the muscles to allow for passage of stool. We can teach you how to restore the normal mechanics of defecating. If you have chronic constipation, you would benefit from pelvic floor therapy to help you. If you have chronic constipation and would like to learn more about our treatment, contact us here.
4. If you experience difficulty urinating and emptying your bladder, pelvic PT can help you.
The process of urinating should come easily and naturally. Many of our patients feel the need to urinate, but then get to the toilet and cannot start their stream. Or they get a portion of their urine out and their stream just stops. Often they finish urinating and still feel an annoying sensation that they still need to pee. Some of these patients experience urinary tract infections, in part, because they are not fully emptying their bladder. If you have any of these symptoms, you need pelvic floor therapy; contact us here to learn more.
5. If you have urinary urgency or frequency, pelvic floor PT can help you.
The bladder should be giving you gentle contractions letting you know that at some point in the future you will need to urinate. But, often this process gets hijacked by an overactive bladder spasm resulting in a very urgent and immediate need to urinate. If you experience sudden urges to urinate and find yourself running to the bathroom, possibly losing some urine along the way, you need pelvic floor therapy. Pelvic PT will calm your bladder and restore normal bladder filling and storing capacity. In fact, pelvic PT is your best option. While there are medications to help an overactive bladder, they have side effects that are unpleasant, and taking a medication for the rest of your life isn’t pleasant. Pelvic PT gets to the root causes of your problem and helps calm your bladder. At Purple Mountain PT, our treatment is holistic, giving you expert hands-on treatment to your thoracic spine, low back, hips, thighs and abdomen because these areas all contribute to overactive bladder symptoms. We also treat and resolve underlying pelvic floor dysfunction, because with urinary frequency and urgency there is usually a component of pelvic floor muscle stiffness and overactivity signaling to the brain a constant need to urinate. If you are interested in learning more about our pelvic floor PT, contact us here.
6. If you have pelvic organ prolapse, pelvic or vaginal pressure, you need pelvic floor therapy.
Pelvic organ prolapse is our expertise at Purple Mountain PT. We help you understand the state of your prolapse and how you can best manage or minimize it. We have evidence that myofascial restrictions in the spine, hips, pelvis and abdomen contribute to imbalanced forces in the pelvis, which may show up as pelvic organ prolapse. Our treatment for prolapse involved a holistic approach to resolve your fascial restrictions and trigger points while we also address your pelvic floor dysfunction, breathing and functional movement patterns. We teach you how to minimize strain and pressure through your pelvic organs so that you are not harming/worsening your prolapse. Our patients tell us that their treatment with us has been the best thing they have done. We empower you and help you to know how to be active, fit and healthy while having a prolapse. A prolapse can definitely be managed and improved with high quality pelvic floor PT. To learn more about our comprehensive treatment for pelvic organ prolapse, contact us here.
6. If you have pelvic pain, you need pelvic floor PT.
Resolving pelvic pain, including severe and chronic pelvic pain, is our specialty. You should not be having any pelvic pain. Pelvic pain includes things like SI joint pain, coccydynia, pubic pain, chronic lower abdominal pain, vaginal pressure, anal pain, perineal pressure, genital pain (testicles, ovaries, clitoris). We treat individuals who have severe endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, chronic SI joint pain, pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain, hip pain or any other pelvic pain.
Quite often these pain conditions involve pelvic floor muscle dysfunction that needs treatment. And it also involves imbalanced joints of the spine, pelvis or hips. Our program provides you with 55 minute private appointments with a combination of advanced manual therapies such as myofascial release, trigger point release, scar tissue mobilization, joint mobilization, visceral mobilization and more. We also use exercise based methods to restore flexibility, posture, strength and muscle coordination. To learn more about our chronic pelvic pain treatment methods and to speak with one of our representatives, reach out to us here. Anyone who has pelvic pain needs pelvic floor therapy.
I would like to call out our sisters who have endometriosis. In particular, the cruel and unrelenting pain of endometriosis needs pelvic PT. We can help you reduce your muscle guarding and spasms, curled up posture, tension in your hips, pelvic floor dysfunction and more. I wrote an article about how PT helps pelvic pain, you can read it here.
7. You may benefit from pelvic floor PT if intimacy is painful
Helping people (men and women) overcome painful intimacy is our expertise. We often work with people who come to us with a primary concern of pelvic pain (such as tailbone pain) and a secondary complaint that sex hurts. Or, some of our patients have no pain during intimacy, but the next day they are miserable. If this is you, please look for high quality pelvic floor PT to help you.
For women, penetrative sex should not hurt. If you have pelvic floor dysfunction, then those muscles can be stiff and tense, so that intimacy and touch or penetration is painful. For men we find that intimacy can bring on more pelvic floor muscle tension and/or spasms. Because we work holistically, addressing your abdomen, low back, hips, thoracic spine and thighs, we are able to improve your myofascial restrictions and associated contributions to your pelvic floor dysfunction and pelvic pain. Contact us here to learn more.
8. If you are pregnant or postpartum and have any pelvic pain or bladder control problems, pelvic PT can help you.
When pregnant or postpartum you should not be experiencing any pelvic pain or bladder control problems. In fact, research has shown us that if a person who is pregnant has bladder problems and gets those problems treated during the pregnancy, she is less likely to have problems postpartum.
We all know or have heard of someone who had pregnancy related back pain, SPD (lightning crotch, pubic pain), hip pain or SI joint pain. Those pains don’t just take care of themselves. You will benefit from the expert guidance of a pelvic health PT to rehabilitate your body. We work with you by providing a combination of hands-on manual therapy and exercise based rehabilitation that balances your spine, hips and pelvis and alleviates stress and strain on your pelvic floor and core. Our pregnancy postpartum recovery program is a highlight of our treatment here; our patients consistently report feeling stronger, better aligned, less pain and resolution of all pelvic floor dysfunction symptoms. If you are interested to learn more, contact us here.
9. If you have a “mommy pooch”, diastasis recti abdominis, or appearance of a bulge in your abdomen, then pelvic floor PT can help you.
We specialize in assessing and treating diastasis recti abdominis (DRA). This condition commonly occurs with pregnancy, but we also have treated men who have it. We assess every patient for a DRA, regardless of their condition. A DRA is a widening and thinning of the linea alba, the connective tissue between your rectus abdominus muscles. When this widens and thins, you may develop difficulty with transferring load through your core. If this is the case, then you are straining your back, hips, abdominal wall and pelvic floor with every strain-filled move you make, which may be a simple move such as picking up your infant. If you have a DRA or wonder if you have a DRA, get expert care to resolve this.
Our methods are advanced and comprehensive. We will assess you performing a variety of movements to determine at what point does your linea alba experience strain and to teach you how to modify this so that you can restore your abdominal wall integrity. If you would like to learn more about our DRA recovery program, contact us here.
Purple Mountain Physical Therapy is a specialty pelvic health clinic located in Grand Rapids, MI. We offer expert care for pelvic floor dysfunction and bladder, bowel or intimacy related problems. Many of our patients come to us frustrated due to chronic pain, whether it is hip pain, back pain or pelvic pain. Pelvic pain might be from endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, chronic prostatitis. Or it may be tailbone pain, abdominal pain, pubic, SI joint or deep vaginal pain. We have advanced training and experience helping individuals overcome chronic pain. We provide individualized and comprehensive care that is customized to each person’s findings. Our patients tell us finding our treatment has been the most important thing they’ve done to help their pain! We are honored to help you. Call us at 616-516-4334. to discuss your needs or reach out to us online right here.
Peace,
