Our Diastasis Recti Abdominis Rehab Program Helps You Correct Your Mommy Pooch! We are Specialists at Assessing and Treating DRA
Are you tired of your mommy pooch? Wondering why your abdomen has a bulge? Unhappy with the appearance of your abdominal wall? Worried that you might have an umbilical hernia (belly button) and need surgery? Are you noticing your belly button is spread apart more than it should be? You have found the right place to help you recover from a diastasis recti abdominus (DRA). Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program will help you restore your abdominal wall appearance, integrity and strength.
We offer Ultrasound Imaging of Your Diastasis Recti Abdominis to Measure & Guide Your Progressive Diastasis Recti Abdominis Recovery to Restore Your Diastasis Recti and Bring Integrity to Your Abdomen!
Take the guesswork out of what is going wrong with your abdominals with our industry leading rehabilitative ultrasound imaging. Included in your plan, while working with our pregnancy & postpartum recovery specialist PTs, is ultrasound imaging to measure your abdominal separation, identify what the impairment is in your muscles and help you retrain all of your abdominal muscles. Getting your abs + pelvic floor + diaphragm + hip flexors + deep core of your low back + hips & glutes working effectively is our speciality. Let us help you demystify your body and get things to improve, so you are painfree and feel strong and confident in your abdominal wall appearance. No other clinic has invested in this technology and when you work with us, it is standard of care! Patients love it because seeing your muscles at work helps your recovery, you can figure out who to get the right muscles firing to help heal your diastasis recti abdominis.
If you are interested in learning about our DRA recovery program, contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill out this online inquiry so we can chat about your needs. We treat people in person at our clinic in Grand Rapids, Michigan and also online via telehealth.
Our patients come to us many times knowing there is something wrong with their abdomen, but not knowing what to do about it. Recently a patient summed up the state of getting help for your DRA best when she said
“I know I have a DRA. They told me I have a DRA. That’s what they said, yep, you have a DRA. Then they didn’t tell me anything else. Nothing. Nothing. They didn’t tell me one thing to do to get it better. They just told me I could make it worse so I’d better be careful when I exercise.”
We take the frustration and uncertainty away! When you come to Purple Mountain PT for our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program, you experience a full, comprehensive assessment and treatment plan with clear guidance regarding how to heal your DRA.
To assess and treat a diastasis recti abdominis is a higher level skill. You have found the right place! Our PTs have devoted their careers to helping resolve Diastasis Recti Abdominis, Pelvic Floor Issues, Low Back Pain, Neck and TMJ Pain and Hip Disorders.
Our patients often come to us frustrated or having received outdated and frightening (incorrect) guidance about all the horrible problems they will have if they worsen their diastasis recti abdominis. Just last week I had a mom, 6 weeks postpartum, scared because at her six week check up she was told, ominously, that after she is done having children she likely will need hernia surgery. Our ultrasound imaging found some hopeful measurements and a provided a clear starting point for her to be more intentional, and less scared, during this important recovery period.
If you want measurements, instead of speculation & guessing, and real solutions for your diastasis recti and postpartum recovery, give us a call and learn about our rehabilitative ultrasound imaging and why our holistic and specialized approach is what you are looking for! Alternatively, reach out to us here with a simple online inquiry and we will be in touch!
What does a Diastasis Recti Abdominis Rehab Program Entail?
Every appointment you will be privately guided by one of our specialist physical therapists who never leaves your side! You have a private, upto 55 minutes appointment receiving customized treatments that can combine rehabilitative ultrasound imaging, therapeutic exercise, balance & posture training, whole body vibration exercises and hands-on manual therapies to help facilitate closer of your linea alba, pain relief, strengthening of your abdomen, and relief of myofascial restrictions.
One of the hallmarks of the high quality care you receive at Purple Mountain PT is the individualized attention your get during your private appointments with our specialist physical therapists. We never leave you to exercise alone or under supervision of a lesser trained person. Everything we do here at Purple Mountain is designed to give you results, including providing you rehabilitative ultrasound imaging, so we are not guessing what is going on with your abdomen. The ultrasound will show you which exercises help you and which ones to avoid. It also helps your brain figure out how to correctly activate and coordinate the many layers of your abdominal muscles. We go into great detail to holistically improve your abdominal wall and to customize your diastasis recti abdominis rehab program.
We begin with a very thorough evaluation of your entire core
This means we assess and treat your low back, ribcage & thoracic spine, diaphragm, hips, pelvic floor and thighs, in addition to your abdomen. We identify exactly where you are having difficulty engaging your abdominal wall effectively. If you would like to learn more about getting started with our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program contact us at (616)516-4334 or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch. We work both in person at our clinic and also via telehealth.
Are your hips or low back or ribs or thoracic spine contributing to your mommy pooch?
We will assess and treat all of these areas because they each play an important role in recovery of abdominal wall integrity. We know that the low back muscles work in coordination with the abdominal wall. Therefore, we assess and treat the low back for our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program. Your glutes may not be strong and effective, either. If this is the case, then your entire hip girdle and pelvis is not as stable and strong as needed and you may be straining your abdominal wall with daily movements. Your posture, including in your head, thoracic spine and rib cage, greatly influences your breathing and diaphragm engagement. We will assess and treat these areas because if the ribs are held in a flare, then you are widening and straining your abdominal wall.
We check every abdominal muscle to check if they are coordinating at the proper balance and if you have ongoing elongation problems that are a consequence of pregnancy.
You’ve heard of your obliques and your six pack muscles. You may or may not have heard of your transverse abdominus muscle. All of these muscles are supposed to be working together, in a balanced fashion and ultrasound imaging and our therapeutic exercises will determine if you have muscular imbalances or bad habits that need to be overcome. Pregnancy stretched out all the muscles and our specialist PTs work with you to help restore their muscle length-tension. Our diastasis recti abdominis (DRA) rehab program provides targeted and specific exercises to rehabilitate your internal and external obliques, rectus abdominus and transversus abdominus muscles, while teaching you to properly coordinate these muscles with your pelvic floor, diaphragm and low back.
Recovering your abs, pelvic floor, posture and strength feels challenging, yet under the guidance of our specialist PTs, you will find it fun and a huge relief to know you are making progress. Interested in learning more? Call us at (616) 516-4334 to speak with one of our knowledgable team members or ask us a question here and we’ll be in touch.
We check your abdominal wall for load transfer capacity! In other words, can your abdominal wall handle all the moves your body must do on a day to day basis?
We look very carefully at your abdominal wall as you move in a variety of positions so that we can see exactly where the load transfer failure is occurring and we can determine how to beneficially load your abdominal wall. To be properly assessed you will find us, your physical therapists, lying on the ground to watch you move and to see if your abdominal wall and linea alba can tolerate these movements. We will have you bend, twist, rotate, perform a variety of abdominal exercises, breathe, raise your legs, raise your arms, contract your pelvic floor and more. Our assessment is much more thorough than anything you will receive anywhere else.
We assess and treat your pelvic floor and figure out how it is working in coordination with your abdominal wall. This is key to resolving your DRA!
The pelvic floor muscles work in conjunction with the abdominal wall. Every time your abdominals contract, your pelvic floor muscles should also be working. We find that our patients who have a mommy pooch also have pelvic floor dysfunction. To effectively resolve the bulge in your abdomen and restore integrity to your core, we must rehabilitate your pelvic floor also, which is one thing that renders our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program more effective than anything else you will try. If you are interested in learning more contact us here or fill out this online inquiry and we will be in touch. We offer in person appointments in Grand Rapids and online appointments via telehealth.
A huge bonus of our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program is our holistic approach, so that any pelvic floor symptoms you are having, such as incontinence with laughing, pelvic pressure, urinary urgency, painful intercourse or constipation will improve.
We aren’t tooting our own horn here. We are simply telling you what our patients have told us, which is
“no one has ever looked at my abdominal wall in as much detail as you did. And no one knew how to tell me what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing. But, you told me exactly what I should do and I followed your recommendations and I see the progress.”
We have helped fitness professionals overcome DRA, other medical providers, other physical therapists, men, older women and postpartum women.
Our founder, Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT healed her own DRA. She had a stubborn one that was not an easy fix. She has trained all the Purple Mountain PT staff in best practices to recover the abdominal wall.
Dr. Maureen O’Keefe developed a problematic DRA with her own pregnancy that proved challenging to resolve. She was already a pregnancy and postpartum specialist PT at the time and knew all the techniques, yet had to go beyond the norms to find a pathway to her own recovery. At times she wasn’t sure it was recoverable. Her progress was slower than many of her patients’ progress and because of this she questioned if she had a problem that was fixable. But, she persevered and just committed herself to doing the exercises and treatments that she knew should be working to help herself. Every. Day. For. Months. You read that right, she did corrective exercises daily for many, many months, while working and raising two babies. She knows how hard this is and because of her personal experience and her professional experience, which includes taking ongoing continuing education to keep up with diastasis recti abdominis best practices, she and the team at Purple Mountain PT (who are all trained by her in DRA recovery) can help you overcome your problem. If you would like to learn more about our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program contact us at (616)516-4334 or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch. We treat people in person at our clinic in Grand Rapids, Michigan and also online via telehealth.
The research on DRA has changed in the last 5-10 years. Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program follows the latest guidance so you experience the best results!
There is outdated information readily available online with outdated myths and incorrect advice. Diastasis recti abdominis is a condition where not self-treating and not googling would be advised because you are likely to get incorrect information. Instead, when you are properly evaluated by us, we identify your body’s needs and weaknesses, cut through the uncertainty, give you specific corrective exercises, rehabilitative ultrasound imaging and hands-on manual therapies customized to your abdominal wall and will dispel any outdated myths.
We work with pregnant and postpartum women everyday who have elongated abdominal walls and diastasis recti abdominis. They also have pelvic floor dysfunction, deep core weakness, lower back pain, urinary or bowel problems and may have pelvic pain. If we can help these women, we can help you, also.
We wrote an article regarding exercise in pregnancy and detail some of our approach to helping people who have DRA. You may be interested to read the article by clicking here.
A Diastsis Recti Abdominis (DRA) is a thinning, weakening and widening of the linea alba that causes load transfer problems in the abdominal wall.
A diastasis recti is a thinning, weakening and widening of the linea alba connective tissue that lies between the right and left rectus abdominis muscles causing ineffective load transfer capacity through your core muscles. You transfer loads from your legs, through your pelvis and into your abdomen and core when you walk, bend over to pick up your baby, climb stairs and shift your position to feed your baby. If you have a diastasis recti abdominis and your load transfer capacity is dysfunctional, you may experience not only the appearance of a poochy abdomen, even after you have lost your baby weight, but also problems with low back pain, hip pain, pelvic girdle pain, urinary incontinence and constipation. We know how to help you get your body back and heal this problem. We can guide you through a diastasis recti abdominis rehab program that facilitates the closure of your DRA, resolves ongoing abdominal wall elongation, restores pelvic floor integrity and improves your ability to load transfer effectively. To get started, contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill out this online inquiry and we will be in touch.
We have been treating DRA for years and helping people overcome this problem.
For years we have been helping men and women with diastasis recti recover from this condition. We follow current research, which seems to evolve and reveal more interesting components of a DRA each year! We attend professional conferences regarding DRA and how to best treat it. Having a DRA is so important to us and to your pelvic health concerns, we assess every single patient we see for a diastasis recti. It is a problem that greatly impacts your pelvic health, back pain, urinary control, bowel control and overall sense of looking good.
We can help pregnant women learn how to protect their abdominal wall to prevent a worsening DRA. We help postpartum women strengthen their abdominal wall, close their gap from their DRA and resolve their elongated abdominal muscles.
If you are pregnant and want to be proactive, to avoid developing a DRA early on in your pregnancy and to learn how to protect your abdominal wall as you lift and move, we are here to help you. Call us at (616)516-4334 to learn how to get started, or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch. If you are post-partum and want to recover your body to include restoring your abdominal wall integrity and your pelvic health, we are specialists in this area. If you are a man or woman who comes to us with a pelvic pain, back pain, abdominal pain or hip pain condition, we will assess you to determine if you have a DRA and, if you do, we will take you through a progressive rehabilitative program to help heal it. Knowing how to accurately assess whether a DRA is present and how to properly manage it to foster its rehabilitation is our expertise and is often missing in standard orthopedic treatments for musculoskeletal pain, such as back pain. If you have bowel or bladder conditions such as constipation or urinary incontinence, as DRA may be a contributing factor.
At the heart of our specialty at Purple Mountain PT is pelvic floor dysfunction, deep core training and abdominal rehabilitation. The pelvic floor muscles work in partnership with the abdominal wall. Because of this, we always assess and treat abdominal wall dysfunction for anyone with pelvic, back or hip issues.
Purple Mountain Physical Therapy, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a specialty pelvic health clinic. We treat women, men and kids who have pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, bladder and bowel problems. We also treat men, women and kids who have TM joint disorders involving myofascial pain, cervicogenic headaches and neck pain. When we work with pregnant and postpartum women we help overcome pelvic floor dysfunction, diastasis recti abdominis, pelvic pain, bladder control problems, bowel troubles and intimacy related pain. Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program is for all of our patients because even children and men can have a DRA. When you choose Purple Mountain Physical Therapy you are choosing pelvic health, pregnancy and postpartum specialists who treat you comprehensively and holistically. We are here to help you and are privileged to be in your corner through your journey to looking and feeling your best! For more information contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill out this online form and we will be in touch with you.
