Can Physical Therapy Help My IC?
If you have been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis and are struggling with chronic pain and urinary frequency and urgency and would like natural and effective treatment, have you completed physical therapy from a specialist, licensed physical therapist?
Here at Purple Mountain PT, we specialize in treating interstitial cystitis, pelvic floor dysfunction, chronic pelvic pain, low back pain and bladder problems. Many of our patients come to us wondering if physical therapy can help their IC.
Yes, PT can help IC and, in fact, PT is amongst the clinical treatment guidelines for interstitial cystitis and is listed as one of the first things that should be offered to you.
If you would like to learn more about working with our interstitial cystitis physical therapists call us at (616) 516-4334 or contact us here to ask us a question and we will be in touch.
Which IC Symptom Would You Like To Improve with Physical Therapy?
Are you experiencing painful urination?
Do you have recurrent UTIs or what feels like an infection but your doctor tells you there is no infection?
Have you ever experienced pain with intimacy?
Do you have lower abdominal, bladder or pelvic pain, or abdominal pressure?
Are you tired of dealing with urinary urgency and/or frequency? Or a constant feeling like you need to pee?
Do you have more pain with a full bladder or when urinating?
Have you been to the ER or doctor for issues related to IC and are frustrated that no one seems to be able to help you?
Did you reluctantly try Elmiron and then when you heard it can impair vision, you felt even more despair given the lack of medications to help IC pain?
If you would like to improve any of the above IC symptoms, our physical therapists can help you. At Purple Mountain PT, our licensed doctors of physical therapy specialize in providing meaningful, research backed IC rehabilitation to help calm your bladder and pain.
Many of our patients tell us that our treatments have given them their lives back. Call (616) 516-4334 to speak with a knowledgeable team member about our treatments or reach out to us here and we will be in touch!
Skeptical that physical therapy can help your interstitial cystitis and improve your quality of life? Read what one of our patients who has interstitial cystitis had to say about our treatment
I have been struggling with bouts of debilitating pelvic pain for over a decade that progressively got worse. Unfortunately it took a very long time to get referred to pelvic floor therapy and I am so grateful that I have! Dr. Maureen is amazing! I haven’t had a flare in the 3 months that I have seen her and this November was the first November I can remember where I didn’t have a pain flare! I am so grateful that she moved into this area because to find a specialist with her credentials and accolades is very rare. My uro/gynecologist referred me to her as a hail mary and that she was! If you have pelvic pain and can afford the best, Dr. Maureen is your girl. She is a beautiful human and she really cares about my health. I feel loved every time I see her.
~Female with IC, chronic pelvic pain, numerous ER and MD visits who finally found relief after receiving our physical therapy.
We understand that when you have Interstitial Cystitis (IC) also known as Bladder Pain Syndrome (BPS), there are not a lot of effective treatments to help you. However, we also have found here in West Michigan that most of you who have been diagnosed with IC were never told that physical therapy can help your IC. Because our physical therapists specialize in treating IC and our founder has a background working with major medical centers in Chicago and with the International Pelvic Pain Society, we find it very disappointing, to say the least, that you are left without being offered one of the first lines of treatment that the clinical practice guidelines advise: physical therapy.
IC/BPS means you are experiencing a combination of pelvic pain, painful urination, abdominal pressure, pain with intimacy, recurrent UTIs, and urinary urgency and frequency.
Research has found that with IC, the pain is landing in your bladder and abdominal/pelvic region. People who have IC also have pelvic floor dysfunction, considerable muscular tension and trigger points, altered hip and low back mobility, higher activation of pain and often do not know what they should be doing or avoiding to keep their IC calm. Our PTs will help you receive comprehensive, whole body treatments designed to regulate and optimize your bladder, calm your nerves, ease your pelvic floor dysfunction, optimize your low back, hips and abdomen and teach you how to calm your nervous system so it is not so sensitive and activated all the time. Not enough research has been done to know specific reasons that cause IC to come about in people. Although women are more commonly diagnosed with IC men can also be diagnosed. Our care can help anyone dealing with IC, but more on that later!
Can PT help IC? Is there hope for a life free of bladder pain and issues? The answer is YES! In fact, PT should be one of the first things you do, so you don’t suffer unnecessarily.
PT for IC can help with the painful urination, painful sex, low back pain, urinary frequency and urgency, abdominal pain, pelvic pressure, resolving the feeling that you have a UTI (when you don’t) and more. Do you think your life would be easier without those things? We believe so and hope you do too! Interested in learning more, call (616) 516-4334 OR contact us here with your inquiry.
Not All PT is the Same! Our Specialist IC Physical Therapists Know How To Provide Your Physical Therapy That is Effective To Help Your IC.
Pelvic Floor PT from an experienced and knowledgeable PT specializing in Interstitial Cystitis, like our PTs here at Purple Mountain PT, is your best bet! All of our PTs are specifically trained in the research based hands-on manual therapy methods shown to alleviate IC pain and symptoms. We assess you thoroughly and completely to be able to design a treatment plan that is effective, meaningful and alleviates pain and bladder urgency and frequency. To learn more, call (616) 516-4334 or submit an online inquiry here and we will be in touch.
At Purple Mountain PT our PT provides you comprehensive therapeutic treatments from head to toe to help your IC, calm your bladder, ease nerve and muscle spasms and to improve your quality of life.
These comprehensive treatments include myofascial release anywhere from your neck to your knees, joint mobilization, postural correction, core muscle retraining, low back pain hands-on and corrective exercise based treatments, pelvic floor muscle training and relaxation, neural calming and pain neuroscience education. We may elect to use our rehabilitative ultrasound machine to show you how your muscles are incorrectly working and to begin the process of teaching you to unravel the muscle guarding, tension and dysfunction. These comprehensive treatments can help your IC. Each week we will build on the results from the prior appointments and also teach you what you could be doing at home to help yourself. If you would like to work with our PTs who specialize in treating IC, call us at (616) 516-4334 to learn more about our PT or contact us here for more information.
What type of manual therapies will my PT use to help my IC?
Our PT includes a variety of hands-on manual therapies including:
- Visceral mobilization and gentle abdominal massage to calm the lower abdominal muscles and cramping and tension in the abdomen.
- Myofascial release – moving the fascia in our bodies helps relieve physical stress, tension, stiffness and muscle guarding held in our body.
- Trigger point Release – by working on certain points in the body and releasing knots we can relieve pains that come with IC.
- Therapeutic Exercise Therapy- We may pair movement and exercise with hands-on manual therapies including cupping, myofascial release, joint mobilization, hip mobility or other hands-on treatments. Our PTs who specialize in treating IC know how to help retrain your movement patterns so you experience pain relief.
- Dry Needling -to calm angry nerves, muscles and fascia
- Cupping – can help with abdominal tension, inner thighs, glutes, spine, SIJ and low back pain relief
- Pelvic Floor retraining and physical therapy– To ease pelvic floor tension, stiffness and overactivity. This is crucial to calming IC symptoms and pain.
What does pelvic floor PT treatment involve?
At Purple Mountain PT, our pelvic PT to help IC is comprehensive, meaning we treat your whole body with hands-on manual therapy methods, therapeutic exercises, neural calming, behavioral training and techniques to balance the nervous system and optimize the bladder. Part of this treatment involves retraining your pelvic floor muscles, which can be done using external methods as well as internal treatments. Our PTs will assess and treat your superficial and deep pelvic floor muscles, nerves, pelvic alignment, tailbone, hips and low back. We also check your pelvic fascia and nerves, and if you have restrictions or pain around the nerves we provide gentle therapeutic treatments to calm these. Our PTs communicate with you throughout your treatments to educate you, to check in on how you are doing, to involve you with breathing or active movement to help your treatment.
Because our PTs specialize in helping IC, our patients tell us that they learn so much in their treatments and are so grateful to receive high quality treatments that immediately give them relief.
Yes, usually immediately after an appointment our patients can urinate more easily and have less pain. If this is intriguing to you and you are looking for help for your IC, call us at (616) 516-4334 to talk with one of our team members or ask us a question here and we will be in touch.
Should I be doing Kegels to help my IC?
You may be curious why we haven’t talked about Kegels yet. Aren’t they typically the societal go to for any pelvic problem? Unfortunately, in the case of IC, Kegels can worsen your symptoms! We are already dealing with muscles that are tense. TIghtening them over and over with Kegels often worsens the urinary urgency, frequency and pain. To learn how to properly train your pelvic floor muscles, you need to be working with one of our qualified pelvic health physical therapists who specialize in helping IC. We will teach you exactly what is going on with your pelvic floor and can even use our ultrasound machine to show you what the problem is. Patients love to see their pelvic floor muscles on the screen and find it is very helpful to get them to understand how to rehabilitate them. To get started with our PT to help IC, call us at (616) 516-4334 or reach out to us here online and we will be in touch.
Why choose Purple Mountain Physical Therapy to Help Your IC?
Purple Mountain has a team of PTs who specialize in IC care. We don’t dabble in helping IC, persistent pelvic pain, chronic back pain and bladder issues. This is what we do. All day. Everyday. For years. We have treated patients with IC successfully for decades. Many of our patients wonder if physical therapy can help their IC and we are here to confidently tell you, YES! We have specialized training & experience and love this work. Getting to know you is a joy for us and seeing the transformation in our patients, as they get their life back, free from IC flares and pain gives us so much satisfaction. If you would like to learn more about our PT for IC, call us at (616) 516-4334 or contact us here.
What Makes Purple Mountain PT Different From Other Options?
- We specialize in pelvic health. This is NOT an add-on to general orthopedic PT. You are working with a specialist.
- We provide our patients one-on-one, 55 minute appointments while you work with your doctor of physical therapy. We never leave your side and never have you work with a lesser trained staff member
- We are specifically trained in treating IC, chronic pelvic pain and bladder conditions.
- We are trained in treating women and men. The treatments and experience we offer to men and women differ and we know how to treat each of you with the specifics of what you need.
- Our treatments are personalized and comprehensive and use the specific methods shown in research to help IC. We recently treated a patient whose pelvic PT at another location did not help her and told her that she could not treat the patient’s low back, because the patient was there for pelvic PT. Our PTs take a different approach: your low back is part of your pelvic problem, we include treatment for this.
- We approach each appointment with a trauma informed method, optimism, pain neuroscience education, gentleness, and understanding.
- This diagnosis can impact so many aspects of your quality of life and confidence in yourself. Our clinic is a safe place for people to explain all the ways in which your IC bladder and pain has come to impact their life. We will include treatment to remedy all of these and to get your functioning to the best of your capacity again.
IC can interfere with your daily activities, pain, running to the bathroom, anxiety, the list could go on. IC can affect your relationships, romantic or otherwise. Our PTs are here to help you and know that you are not alone. We have helped hundreds of people just like you overcome their IC related problems.
You may feel like due to your IC, you cannot be present with others, thinking about your pain, finding a bathroom, or avoiding intimacy. We are here for you. This care can help you. You do not have to live with those things. There is help out there and you have found the right place.
If you are experiencing any pelvic pain or wondering can physical therapy help my IC, please reach out to us to learn more about our PT for IC. Here at Purple Mountain PT we offer remote consultations for those that qualify and cannot get here to Grand Rapids, Michigan. For people who would like in person care we offer a 55’ minute evaluation and from there we can create your plan of care together to make sure it is going to be the most effective and meaningful for you.
Call 616.516.4334 to talk with our knowledgeable staff to see how we can help you.
Peace,
Founder of Purple Mountain PT. Pelvic health, spine and TMJ specialist physical therapist for over 25 years. All staff at Purple Mountain PT are trained and experienced in the specialized treatments and methods we use to help our IC patients. Don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more, we love to talk to you! (616) 516-4334 or ask us a question here.
You may be interested in these other articles we’ve written:
For more information about IC, here is another blog we wrote about our IC care.
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Tailbone pain and How Pelvic Floor PT Can Help You! Plus Some Self-Care Tips!
