What is Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?
IMPROVE YOUR PELVIC FLOOR FUNCTION
Included among the many services a physical therapist offers is Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Therapy. In this article, we’ll give you the background on how dysfunction in your pelvic floor muscles can affect your quality of life, and what Physical Therapy can do to help fix the problem.
What Is The Pelvic Floor? And Why Is It Important?
Your pelvis is made up of two bones that make room for your internal organs. While connected to the spine and hip, the pelvic bones fuse together to make a bowl shape. To help make this “room” orderly and to make sure that the organs are stable in their positions, muscles and ligaments attach around them. Think of your pelvic floor muscles and ligaments as a trampoline or a sling, where your organs - the bladder, rectum, uterus for women, and prostate for men - lie down. Aside from providing stability, your pelvic floor muscles help you to control urinating, bowel movements and sexual activity. So, what happens when they are affected?
Our pelvic floor muscles wrap around our internal organs, so when our muscles are active/contracted, we are able to hold and control urinating or defecating. When muscles are weak, it may result in urinary incontinence, which is a sudden leak of urine outside of your voluntary control. Pelvic floor muscles can also overreact or have a spasm that makes it difficult for a person to fully empty their bladder and bowel. And, just like any other muscle, the muscles of your pelvic floor can be tight and may result in painful intercourse for women.
Other symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction are:
You need to take several trips to the bathroom either to urinate or defecate in a short time span.
You stop urinating even though you feel as though you have not completely emptied your bladder
Pain in your lower back that is not musculoskeletal or orthopedic in origin
Painful urination
Ongoing pain in your pelvic area, groin, genitals or rectum with or without bowel movement
What Causes These Symptoms?
There is not one specific cause of pelvic floor dysfunction. Pelvic floor muscles are just like any other muscle in the body, they can get stiff, tighten up, develop knots or become weak. Some known causes of this condition are pregnancy, vaginal childbirth, or trauma. Some doctors would also suggest that frequent coughing or straining develops a certain level of incoordination in the pelvic muscles.
When to Seek Help?
It’s always best to seek medical assistance when you first realize the symptoms. Never wait for pain, or any other kind of symptom to go away on its own because even if it does, chances are it will return! And in some instances, symptoms that return are worse. Most clients feel ashamed and bothered when they experience incontinence or leakage. And many clients feel inconvenienced when they can't use the bathroom properly.
What Can PT do?
Yes, a Physical Therapist can help! After you consult with a medical doctor to rule out other diagnosis (like kidney problems), your therapist can perform an assessment and develop a treatment plan to address your symptoms. Here is what you can expect:
Biofeedback - this technique involves placing special electrodes or sensors to muscles close to your pelvic area. This will help give you feedback to see if you’re relaxing or tightening the right muscles. For example, when we try to stop urinating, we usually use our pelvic muscles to hold it in, but if they’re weak, some people hold their urine by using also the abdominal and postural muscles. Biofeedback can help ensure that you’re using the pelvic muscles, and not the abdominals. The feedback can be in the form of sound (high pitched when contracting and low when relaxing) or a video where you see a bunch of lines going up and down (up when you’re contracting and low when relaxing)
Relaxation Techniques - your therapist will teach you ways to relax. One is through diaphragmatic breathing exercises. When we breathe to relax and meditate, we should be able to breathe deeply and expand our bellies. In some cases when a patient is comfortable enough, massage or soft tissue mobilization is provided.
Sessions can get awkward, but it’s up to your physical therapist to make you feel comfortable in your exercises, so it’s important to find the right therapist for you.
The Most Common Exercise Is…
The Kegels! You might have already heard it, and you might have already tried it! Kegels is pretending that you need to urinate and then trying to hold it in. It is an alternating exercise between relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor muscles. It’s important to be familiar with the sensation of contracting and relaxing your muscles, and we’re sure your PT can help you achieve this.
You can also practice this at home, here are the steps to take:
It is best to start practicing Kegels when lying flat on a firm surface or floor. Bend both your knees with your feet still on the ground.
Tighten or contract your muscles for 2 to 3 seconds then relax and release them for the next 5 seconds.
Repeat this exercise 10 times while lying down. And then, do the exercise three times a day (morning, afternoon and night)
When you are more comfortable with the exercise, practice doing it in other positions like sitting and standing. You can also practice while doing an activity such as when washing dishes or watching TV!
Click here to find out more about physical therapy for pelvic floor dysfunction
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