Pelvic floor therapy is a specialized therapy for women designed to treat tightness and weakness in pelvic floor muscles. It involves the strengthening, relaxation, and coordination of muscles in the pelvic floor through a variety of procedures that a physical therapist can do. Sometimes women have weak pelvic floor muscles and this leads to problems with urinating, bowel movement, and sexual function, the best treatment had been pelvic floor therapy. The condition is brought about by several factors like childbirth, aging, and stress. The thing is problems with pelvic floor muscles can be brought about by the decrease or increase in pelvic muscle tone. Thus, it is important to get the muscles in the pelvic floor in a normal resting tone for them to function well. The benefits of pelvic muscle therapy are well-documented among clinical studies and it is the preferred treatment for the loss of muscle tone in the pelvic floor as it is the least invasive treatment option. It is also prescribed as the first treatment option for correcting a host of pelvic floor dysfunction like pain during intercourse and incontinence.
How is pelvic floor therapy done?
Before starting pelvic floor therapy, you need to go to a therapy evaluation with your physical therapist first. During this evaluation, the physical therapist will discuss your medical history, presenting conditions, and complaints and symptoms. You need to be completely honest with your therapist as this will go a long way in helping her identify the problems that you are experiencing. After which, the therapist will do a physical exam which involves an external exam wherein your lumbar spine, joints, and muscles attached to the pelvis will be checked for any muscle tone disturbance such as pain, tightness, and tenderness. The internal exam will be a bit more intimate and personal as the physical therapist will examine the pelvic floor muscles in terms of elasticity and tone and whether there is pain associated with tenderness in the muscles. The therapist will have to go into the vagina or rectum to palpate the pelvic floor muscles which can be embarrassing and discomforting to most patients, but the examination will be done in the shortest time possible. During this, the examination will determine your ability to contract and relax your pelvic floor muscles as well as the movement of the pelvic floor as you breathe. The therapist will then make a clinical assessment of your symptoms and identify the possible causes for them based on the results of the external and internal examination of your pelvic floor muscles. If your condition can be treated with pelvic floor therapy, you will then be scheduled for follow-up treatments which can include exercises like Kegel that can relax and contract the pelvic floor or manual therapy which is done by the physical therapist, the aim of which is to relax the pelvic floor muscles. A newer therapy called biofeedback can also be done which entails the use of a sensor pressure probe that can measure the strength of the contraction of the muscles, the readings will tell you when you are having contractions and when you are relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. Some may use electrical stimulation of the pelvic floor muscles to help activate the muscles, considering that muscles can be triggered by electrical signals. Other treatments may involve the use of specialized equipment or tools such as vaginal dilators and weighted cones that are placed into the vagina to stretch the muscles and then allow them to relax, or it can aid in contraction.
Who can perform pelvic floor therapy?
Pelvic floor therapy can only be performed by specially trained physical therapists who have earned a Certificate of Achievement in Pelvic Physical Therapy or advanced training as a Women's Health Clinical Specialist which allows one to evaluate, diagnose and treat any illness related to women's health. Thus, if you need to consult a pelvic physical therapist, it is your right to determine if they have the necessary training and certification before you see them for a consultation. Although the condition is more common than most women would care to admit, it is often underreported and undiagnosed as it is embarrassing for most. The implications of which is that not many physical therapists have the right training and certification to perform pelvic floor therapy, so you should research and ask first if clinics have them in their staff.
Where to get pelvic floor therapy?
If you believe that there is something wrong with your pelvic floor muscles, the best thing to do is to have yourself checked or examined by a professional, and that is someone who has the certification and training for pelvic floor therapy. Since it is not the usual illnesses or conditions experienced by women, there are a few clinics that do provide the services and specialty. You need to find in your area the clinic, center, or hospitals that have the expertise for pelvic floor therapy and if it is not available then you have to find it in the nearest city or state. You would want a clinic that is near your place as you will probably have multiple visits and sessions with the therapist and if it is too far away from you you might not be able to sustain traveling to the clinic each time. You can do this by asking hospitals and clinics for referrals, or you can even ask your physician if they could recommend a place or a clinic for it, if you would not want to divulge any personal information about your condition then you can also search online and find a clinic near you. Since the search engine will come up with a lot of results, you can narrow it by adding the name of the city or state you are located in. Once you have found the clinic you think will best answer your problems, then you can initiate contact and get yourself a scheduled consultation or assessment. After the initial consultation, you will get a feel for the clinic and therapist as to their quality of care and services, if you feel positive about it then you can continue towards your treatment, but if not, you can always find someone else.