More Women Should Know About Pelvic Floor Therapy
The following story is a true account of a person’s experience seen at Shift Physical Therapy and Wellness. To protect the privacy of the individual we have used a fictitious name.
After the birth of her first child, Sara felt like things had “changed” down there. There wasn’t really pain right away, but things just felt different. She saw her OB/GYN for her 6 week postpartum check and everything was deemed to be “fine".
Sara was given the thumbs up by her doctor to resume her pre-baby workouts and even return to sexual intercourse. Very quickly, Sara realized that things were not “fine”. Where she had once engaged in pain-free intercourse, Sara was now experiencing pain and the fear of pain from being intimate with her husband. She also started having trouble sitting or getting up from a sitting position because of intense pain in her tailbone. The pain was 9/10 at times and made it difficult to get through her work day. Besides having pain, she found herself constantly going to the bathroom. Although she never experienced issues with leakage, she had strong urges to go to the bathroom sometimes multiple times per hour. It was disrupting her commute to/from work and being able to sit through meetings.
The pain in Sara’s tailbone led her to seek help from a chiropractor whom she had been seeing during her pregnancy. That provider recommended that Sara also see a physical therapist that worked in their office, so Sara began seeing both her chiropractor and physical therapist for appointments three times per week. After continuing with this for several weeks, and really not feeling any improvement it was suggested that she might need a MRI of her lower back. Sara got the results of the MRI and continued with the care between various providers for several months with no real improvement to her symptoms.
Something was missing.
Sara started searching for other answers to her pain and symptoms. This is when she contacted Shift Physical Therapy. After discussing her experience over the phone, Sara set up her first appointment. During the first visit, the pelvic floor physical therapist went through a thorough health history and provided Sara with a safe space to answer some personal questions and share her story. The pelvic floor therapist explained procedures and treatment that would be conducted and with optimism and hope, Sara agreed to begin an internal pelvic floor muscle assessment. During a full assessment of the pelvic floor muscles, the pelvic floor therapist was immediately able to reproduce the tailbone pain that Sara had been experiencing for months! That’s right! The tailbone pain was coming from an issue at the pelvic floor!
It was then time to address how frequently Sara was going to the bathroom. In an effort to really understand what Sara was going through, the pelvic floor therapist provided Sara with a bladder diary to complete before returning to her next pelvic floor physical therapy appointment. The bladder diary allowed Sara to track food and fluid intake as well as frequency of going to the bathroom. Sara did her homework and at the next visit it was discovered that Sara was using the restroom an average of 20 times per day (much higher than the typical range of 6-8 per day).
With some initial education and training, Sara noticed within the first month that she was going to the bathroom 50% less than before (from 20 times to closer to 10-12 bathroom visits) per day. Also, Sara no longer was needing to stop at gas stations to use the restroom on her commute for work. In addition, in the first 5 visits of pelvic floor physical therapy (at a frequency of 1 visit per week) she was reporting no pain during sex and 90% improvement of her tailbone pain symptoms!
Months of chiropractic and traditional physical therapy care with no relief, to only 5 visits of pelvic floor therapy and over 90% improvement in pain. This by the way is not to put down those providers, they are amazing at what they do, but when you are missing pieces of the puzzle, it’s hard to see the big picture.
Sara is not the only woman to have a story like this. It was a great thing Sara started seeking care early from her chiropractor and a physical therapist. Unfortunately Sara and the providers missed a few key discussion points (pain with sex, and frequent use of the bathroom) that could have led to Sara seeking care from a pelvic floor therapist sooner rather than later. Often times we shy away from talking about these very personal experiences or we miss that they are even connected. Pelvic floor physical therapists are trained to discuss the “difficult” topics including bowel, bladder, and sexual function as well as look at your symptoms BIG PICTURE. Afterall, you are more than the symptoms you experience. You are a WHOLE person! At Shift PT and Wellness we believe that normalizing the “hard to discuss” conversations can help people recover faster!
If you or someone you know is experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction or just has that feeling that “something isn’t quite right”, contact us! We are here to help you in any way we can. Reach out via email, phone, or submit a free consultation form. You can also follow us on social media @shiftptwell.
Written by: Renee Hancock, Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist
