Did you know that May is Pelvic Pain Awareness month?
Many women suffer from acute and chronic pelvic pain complaints with daily activities. Pelvic pain can include any pain from your belly button down to hips! It is largely contributed to by pelvic floor muscle tension and can cause severe deficits with urinary, bowel, and sexual function. There are also a considerable amount of disorders that can cause pelvic pain. Most commonly known are diagnoses like endometriosis, irritable bowel syndrome, ovarian cyst, fibroids, interstitial cystitis, vulvodynia, vaginismus and bladder pain.
These conditions can have a direct impact on your pelvic floor tension and contribute to pelvic pain at rest or with activity, referred pain to lower back/hips, pain with vaginal insertion of tampon, pain with intercourse/orgasm, increased bladder and bowel frequency and urgency, constipation, and incomplete emptying of bladder/bowel.
Pelvic Pain Treamtent
There is HELP! Pelvic floor therapy offers effective treatments for women suffering from chronic pelvic pain. Your provider should look at your entire body and take a holistic approach to finding out “the why” of your pain/dysfunction and walk you through the healing process based on what they find. Pain is very complex and can have physical and emotional components that are included in your whole body assessment with us. Treatment includes training you to use your breathing pattern to aid in whole body/pelvic floor relaxation, instruction through stretches focused on tight muscles contributing to your pain, gentle manual release work of back/hips and pelvic floor, central nervous system regulating techniques that influence tension in pelvic floor, and finding the most efficient and appropriate strengthening/mobility exercises to empower your journey to a pain free lifestyle!
Next Steps if You Are Experiencing Pelvic Pain
If you are experiencing pelvic pain, painful intimacy, bladder pain, or painful bowel movements please reach out to our clinic. We are passionate about helping women overcome their pain and begin their healing journey!
Learn more about our approach to pelvic pain treatment here.
By Dr. Rachel Hall