By Dr. Thalia Farshchian It can be both a beautiful and frustrating thing that the body is so interconnected. In some respects, it is fascinating and comforting and in other ways, it can feel so complicated. The more I study medicine, the more in awe I become of how it all works. As […]
Stress: I’m all too familiar with it. As I write this blog I feel the stress of the deadline rapidly approaching. Writing is not my forte, so I tend to start writing assignments at the last minute, which puts me under pressure and causes, well…stress. I can feel the heaviness in my chest, the adrenaline […]
Everybody poops! I hope that everyone reading this blog accepts this reality. At PHRC, we spend a lot of time talking to our patients about the importance of proper pooping. Often, this discussion is uncomfortable. I get it. No one is keen to bond with their bowel movements. Poop has a bad reputation, which […]
By Katie Hunter “In the wild, mother and young have a better chance of survival if the mother can regulate labor so that the young are born in safe, quiet surroundings.” –Niles Newton, behavioral scientist and professor at Northwestern University circa 1987 Before I explain what all of this means… let’s go over […]
Diaphragmatic breathing aka deep belly breathing – how is that an exercise? Many of my patients are surprised when I prescribe and emphasize diaphragmatic breathing in their home exercise programs. Historically, they have associated physical and occupational therapy and/or exercise with strengthening, stretching or the need to get the heart rate up. However, […]
By: Admin If you’ve recently been to your physical and occupational therapists, massage therapist, personal trainer, or body worker and heard the words “fascia” and “manipulation” in the same sentence, you are not alone. Fascia has become quite the buzzword for treating everything from chronic neck pain, ACL repair surgery, plantar fasciitis, […]
By Admin Art imitates life, though Hollywood’s imitation of sex is often a crude copy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a good rom-com, and I may or may not be on my second viewing of True Blood, but sometimes I just don’t get it. The sex on TV is not […]
By Rhonda Kotarinos, PT, DPT In this week’s post, guest author and pelvic floor expert Rhonda Kotarinos shares a controversy from the 2016 International Pelvic Pain Society conference. In October I had the privilege of presenting at the International Pelvic Pain Society’s annual meeting. During one of the presentations, a discussion ensued regarding the term contracture. […]
By admin You hit your 40s or 50s and all of the sudden things start spiraling: Your period is out of whack, your undergarments are damp with urine after a one mile walk with your dog, and you can no longer wear your favorite jeans because they’re irritating to your lady parts. As if that […]
Hemorrhoids. About 75% of us will have one at some point in our lives,1 and half of us will have had one before the age of 50.2 Surprised? It’s not the kind of thing we like to discuss with our friends – until you actually have one, that is. Then you find out your buddy […]
We live in a different time. I remember when chat rooms and meeting people from the internet was the plot line for a Lifetime movie. Now, we get in cars driven by strangers and fall in love via sophisticated algorithms and profile pictures. What a time to be alive! It is pretty apparent that technology […]
By Admin During pregnancy and the postpartum period, many women suffer from both functional and cosmetic issues caused from the widening of the abdominal wall from stretch and pressure generated from the growing uterus. This stretching can result in a separation of the rectus abdominis muscle, known as a diastasis recti (DR). Diastasis recti […]
By Admin If you don’t know what or where your coccyx is, count yourself lucky. This little bone can make quite a ruckus when it’s not happy, often called coccydynia. The coccyx, or tailbone, is our little vestigial tail, after eons of evolution. It is often ignored and forgotten by most, but to […]
As a physical and occupational therapists specializing in pelvic floor disorders, specifically pelvic pain, I have noticed a strong correlation between chronic pain, the thyroid, and the endocrine system. I wanted to explore what hormonal imbalances can do to chronic pain. I won’t go into too much detail about persistent pain here, instead please refer […]
When I was younger, the phrase “You are what you eat,” totally confused me. Doughnuts are so delicious and sweet, therefore if I eat a half dozen of glazed old fashioned doesn’t that mean that I would also be sweet and highly desirable? Obviously, I now know that my logic as a kid was inaccurate, […]
By Admin The Kegel, the black box of the exercise world. Are you really doing it right? In today’s post we are going to review some simple exercises to help get to know the pelvic floor muscles. Now, I strongly recommend going through my past post “Exercises for Short/Tight Pelvic […]
People recovering from pudendal neuralgia will tell you there is a lack of understanding about this diagnosis and treatment options in the medical community. Week after week, our blog, How do I know if I have PN or PNE, is one of our most read posts. Recently there has been discussion about cryotherapy treatment for […]
A tampon is “a mass of absorbent material, primarily used as a feminine hygiene product.” The word tampon originated from the medieval French word “tampion,” which literally means a piece of cloth to stop a hole, stamp, plug, or stopper. Let’s break this down. The average woman menstruating for five days a month and approximately […]
Here at PHRC we are not Medicare providers, for good reasons; you may remember that PHRC published a blog post about them. Still, we receive calls almost daily from Medicare patients enquiring about treatment from us, and unfortunately we have to turn them down: the law says, oddly, that we cannot provide treatment to Medicare […]
As many of us reading this blog can attest, pelvic pain can be an issue that leaves us feeling not only physically uncomfortable, but emotionally/mentally drained and isolated. Often, by the time many people get seen by a physical and occupational therapists, they have been mismanaged by other providers, leading to increased frustration among other […]
By Admin I recently attended a course with pain researcher and clinical neuroscientist, Lorimer Moseley. He, along with his colleague David Butler, have changed the face of pain science and helped many clinicians and patients understand how pain works. If you want to see Lorimer in action, and explain pain better than I ever […]
