By Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder The last several months have undoubtedly tested the resilience of the world. The coronavirus has caused severe economic hardship, serious emotional and psychological stress, and most importantly, and devastatingly, significant loss of life. In addition to the seemingly endless challenges caused by the pandemic, in May, all within roughly one week, our country witnessed the …
One-on-One Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Mentoring is now LIVE!
By Liz Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder We are thrilled to report that after introducing our Online Clinical and Business One-on-One Mentoring Program a few weeks ago, the response was overwhelmingly positive! Stephanie and I were very excited to begin to offer these services, as educating the professional community is so important to us, but we weren’t quite sure how excited the …
Early Trauma and Its Effect on Chronic Urogenital Pain
By: Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder Another October, another International Pelvic Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting has come and gone. This year, we gathered in Toronto, Canada to learn about the latest and greatest in the world of pelvic pain. It seemed fitting that the first lecture of the general meeting would discuss possible early contributors to chronic urogenital pain. Dr. …
The Pelvic Health and Rehab Center is Taking Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy to KENYA!
By: Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder PHRC is going to Nairobi, Kenya! I’m excited to announce that PHRC will be sharing their passion and knowledge for pelvic health in Nairobi, Kenya, in February 2020! Myself, PHRC’s Rachel Gelman, PT, DPT and Shannon Pacella, PT, DPT will have the privilege of teaching Pelvic Floor 3 to Kenyan Physical Therapists through the Kenya …
Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome/Male Pelvic Pain/’Prostatitis’ Resource List
By Elizabeth Akincilar, Cofounder, PHRC Lexington May is Pelvic Pain Awareness Month and at PHRC we want to do our part to help people better understand pelvic pain syndromes and more importantly, help people suffering with these diagnoses get the help they need to recover. Since knowledge is power we created 5 videos and blog posts that we hope people …
Hunting for hernias…are they a common cause of pelvic pain in men?
By: Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder Explaining to someone who has never heard of pelvic floor physical therapy what type of physical therapy I practice is always an interesting conversation. People usually assume certain things about my practice. Most assume I primarily treat older women with “bladder issues” and new moms. People are always surprised to find out that almost 50% …
Abdominal Wall and Hernia Pain
By: Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC Cofounder For some of you reading this, October conjures images of autumn leaves, Halloween, and pumpkin spiced…everything. For me, there’s one additional thing that I associate with October. The Annual International Pelvic Pain Society Scientific Meeting. Every October, for the past 13 years, I’ve attended and participated in this meeting. This year, I was pleased …
How Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Can Serve the Transgender Population: Part 1
By: Shannon Pacella Earlier this summer, Dr. Heidi Wittenberg wrote a blog post enabling medical providers to understand transgender healthcare needs, which you can read here. Following Dr. Wittenberg’s lead, I was fortunate enough to attend an educational course focused on the physical therapy evaluation and treatment of transgender patients, and I believe it is imperative to convey how important …
The Squattypottymus: could reducing childhood constipation help prevent adult pelvic pain?
By guest blogger Steve Hodges, MD with an introduction from Elizabeth Akincilar As pelvic floor physical therapists, we often notice a common denominator among our patients suffering with pelvic pain: CONSTIPATION. Probably more frequently than not, our patients with pelvic pain also struggle with constipation currently, or have at some point in their lives. Many of them will …
Autonomic Features of Chronic Pelvic Pain
By Elizabeth Akincilar Understanding and effectively treating chronic pain continues to challenge the medical community. Now more than ever, there is a sense of urgency to treat this disease. With the astounding reports of opiate addiction and opiate related deaths in this country, we now know that throwing drugs at chronic pain is not the answer. So what …
Pelvic Pain and Childbirth. Dr. Mark Conway tells us what we need to know.
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer As we learned in a recent previous post by Stephanie Prendergast, the vast majority of women are not well informed when it comes to their pelvic floor, pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, 93% of women felt like they were insufficiently informed about their pelvic health! Unlike the rest of the population, many of our patients …
I insist! My pelvic pain is my Tarlov cyst!!
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer For the average person, the words Tarlov cyst mean absolutely nothing. For the average medical professional, they mean little to nothing. So why are we devoting an entire blog post to these cysts that no one seems to care about? Full disclosure, personally, I was curious what the literature had to offer on Tarlov cysts since …
Time to Man Up: The Future of Male Birth Control
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer MEN!!! Are you ready?? Birth Control for men is here….almost. Contraception. For some of us, that word has been a saving grace in preventing unwanted pregnancies and diseases. For others, it is fraught with moral and ethical dilemmas. But, those who are the most concerned with and often the most involved with contraception, are …
Calling Bull*!@# on Science
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer How many times have you heard a journalist say something like, “Researchers report a significant breakthrough…”, “Groundbreaking research shows… “, or “According to a new scientific study…”? The news constantly bombards us with “research” or “studies” to provoke an emotional response, whether it’s fear, excitement, or surprise. The point is, to catch your attention. Here …
The Brain Below: The Role Your Gut May Play in Pelvic Pain
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer, MSPT, Cofounder, PHRC Los Angeles When is the last time you heard a little voice inside you that tried to give you advice or warn you of danger? Some describe it as ‘butterflies,’ others a ‘gut feeling.’ That feeling can be attributed to the extremely extensive network of over 100 million neurons that make up …
A Mesh of a Situation
By Elizabeth Akincilar, MPT, Cofounder, PHRC Merrimack In May 2015 a Delaware jury ordered Boston Scientific, a medical device company, to pay a woman $100 million for pain complications following vaginal mesh placement for treatment of pelvic organ prolapse. A few months prior to that a Texas woman was awarded $73 million for similar complications. Some think that …
Male Pelvic Pain Explained: Steve’s Success Story
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer I am happy to say that in March we celebrated our one year anniversary in our Boston area office!! In February 2016 we were excited to welcome our new staff, Melissa Hines, DPT, staff physical therapist and Erika Toronto, Administrative Assistant. It has been a crazy year, but I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know new colleagues and …
Can Yoga help my Pelvic Pain?
Is there a role for yoga in pelvic pain healing? “Absolutely!” says Dustienne Miller, a Northern California-based pelvic floor PT who also happens to be a certified yoga instructor. I sat down with Dustienne to learn more about exactly how yoga and pelvic pain rehab go together, and in today’s post I’m going to share what I’ve uncovered. How Yoga …
PT TV: Liz Talks Pain and the Brain, Kegels and a Multidisciplinary Approach {VIDEO}
PHRC’s approach to treating pelvic pain. Exciting new treatment methods for overcoming central sensitization. And why kegels are no good for a tight pelvic floor. These are among the topics Liz weighs in on during an interview with PT TV, a series of video chats produced by Therapydia.com. In the segment titled “Treating Chronic Pelvic Pain,” Liz chatted with Park …
How do I Find a Pelvic Floor PT?
One of the biggest challenges for pelvic pain patients is finding the right physical therapist. A variety of issues are behind this difficulty. First, the supply of PTs qualified to treat pelvic pain does not meet the patient demand. A major reason for this is that pelvic floor PT is not part of the current PT school curriculum. So, PTs …
Why Kegels are Bad for your Tight Pelvic Floor
Note to Readers: Yesterday we posted a blog summarizing an article titled “Stop Doing Kegels: Real Pelvic Floor Advice for Women (and Men)” written by Nicole Crawford and published on BreakingMuscle.com. There was some confusion that resulted from the post about when kegels are and are not appropriate. The article advises that women (and men) should never do kegels. I …