How Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Can Help you Manage Chronic Pelvic Pain
Chronic pelvic pain is defined as pain lasting > 6 months and is thought to be related to structures in the pelvic area (1). Pain can be related to things such as endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and many other diagnoses. Oftentimes people deal with pain in the pelvic region for a while before getting a diagnosis and receiving treatment. This can be both frustrating and debilitating for people. Many of the conditions above apply to women but men can also suffer from chronic pelvic pain with diagnoses such as of chronic prostatitis, muscle spasm, or IBS to name a few.
If you are someone who experiences pain in the pelvic region, even if you don’t have one of the diagnoses listed above, this post is for you!
While there are a lot of awesome interventions out there to manage chronic pain I want to hit specifically on how pelvic floor PT can help.
When we have pain that persists for a while we can start to change how we move that part of our body. We can clench our muscles and generate excessive tension or we can shut off our muscles and stop using them in response to pain. Most of the time this is happening subconsciously as the brain is conveying signals to our body to help save us from any impending danger or further injury. This is a great mechanics that our body uses to protect us but in times of persistent pain this mechanism can take over and our brain can have difficulty determining what activities are harmful or non harmful. Our body responds by changing our movement patterns and guarding against all movement, even the non harmful kind.
When it comes to the pelvic floor muscles this can manifest as people holding tension when they need to relax and can affect bowel, bladder, or sexual function. I call it the pain/fear/tension cycle and it can be simplified below:
Persistent pelvic pain —> fear of pain —> changes in movement —> tension in muscles around the pain to protect the area —> more pain in the area due to muscle tension
As a pelvic floor PT we can interrupt this cycle by helping people learn to relax the muscles around the pelvis and move their body in a way that feels safe and comfortable thus reducing overall pain. This will in turn also address any subsequent symptoms that arose such as constipation, urinary leakage, or sexual dysfunction.
If you’d like to learn more on how pelvic floor PT can help you manage chronic pelvic pain come join us at our next FREE workshop, sign up and details listed below. As a bonus we will have Lisa King leading us in a somatic yoga practice as well as Dr. Virginia Mims discussing ways acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine can help manage chronic pelvic pain.
Reserve your spot by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code:
https://movesmartky.com/events
References:
Speer, L. M., Mushkbar, S., & Erbele, T. (2016). Chronic Pelvic Pain in Women. American family physician, 93(5), 380–387.
