Pelvic Floor

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that control urinary, fecal (bowel) and sexual function. They hold up your internal organs such as your bladder, uterus and rectum and stabilize your pelvis. They have a lot to do! Through our lifetime the muscles of the pelvic floor can go through tremendous change. Hormone changes, body size, pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause can all effect how well these muscles function. Physical therapy can help by teaching you how to find the pelvic floor muscles, contract/relax them and integrate them with the other muscles of your “core.” Physical therapy can consist of manual therapy, relaxation techniques and exercise.

Areas of Treatment

• Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP)

  Your bladder, uterus and rectum are considered pelvic organs. The pelvic floor muscles and the connective tissue within the pelvis are responsible for holding the organs in place. Sometimes, with pregnancy and delivery, the organs can “fall” or prolapse. Prolapse can also be a result of age related changes. Some symptoms of a prolapse can be feeling like something is falling out and/or pelvic heaviness. A prolapse of the bladder may also cause urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence or constipation and difficulty using tampons.

• Pelvic Pain

  Any pain that is caused the muscles, joint, ligaments and organs of the pelvis. It can be caused by a painful bladder, endometriosis, IBS, constipation. It includes pain with intercourse, tailbone pain, sacroiliac pain and hip pain.

• Pain with Intercourse

  It is not uncommon to have vaginal pain with the return to intercourse in the first couple of attempts. The pain should decrease with each attempt and go away. If the pain is lingering it can be helped with physical therapy.

• Urinary Incontinence

  There are different types of urinary incontinence. Stress, urge and mixed incontinence. Stress incontinence is when you leak urine with a laugh, cough, sneeze, running, jumping etc. Urge incontinence is when you lose urine with a sudden urge to urinate. Mixed incontinence is a combination of stress and urge incontinence. All three can happen with a pregnancy and postpartum.

• Diastasi Recti (separation of abdominal muscles)

  As your belly stretches during pregnancy the muscles of your abdomen, known as the rectus abdominis, can pull away from the line of fascia that travels down the middle of your muscle. Sometimes when this happens it can be difficult to effectively use your abdominals to move, exercise, care for your baby and even maintain continence. Physical therapy can help with healing the muscle and teaching you how to use your abdominals again.

• Return to Exercise

  Are you having trouble returning to exercise? Don’t know where to start? What is appropriate? Do you feel unsteady or unstable with exercise? A physical therapist can help you rebuild your core and return to exercise safely.