Leaking urine is a common problem that can affect women at various stages in her life. Teenage female athletes, pregnant women, new moms, and perimenopausal and postmenopausal women are all affected and may experience urinary incontinence for different reasons.
It is estimated that 80% of women will have stress incontinence at some point in their life and the majority of those women do not report it.
Stress incontinence is treatable with skilled pelvic floor physical therapy.
CONTACT US Bladder and bowel dysfunction can be debilitating and seriously impact your quality of life. From leaking and urgency to pain and other symptoms, many people struggle to find proper treatment, often because the pelvic floor gets overlooked. Instead, they’re given medications that only provide temporary relief from their discomfort. However, pelvic floor therapy […]
CONTACT US Do you feel the urge to urinate frequently, or find yourself leaking before you make it to the bathroom? Many people, especially as they get older, are prescribed medication to manage bladder symptoms and discomfort. And while medication can sometimes minimize symptoms, relief is often temporary and doesn’t address the real underlying cause: […]
By Stephanie Prendergast, MPT, PHRC Pasadena Here at PHRC we help people recover from irritative bladder symptoms with pelvic floor physical and occupational therapy. Bladder symptoms plague millions of people on a daily basis and anyone suffering can explain how much the symptoms compromise their quality of life. Multiple terms and diagnoses have been […]
By Stephanie Prendergast, MPT, Cofounder, PHRC Pasadena Urinary leaking during sneezing and coughing is common. Constipation affects millions of people. Irritative bladder symptoms plague women at multiple points in their life for a number of reasons, and bother men too. If one stops to think about orthopedic surgeries for broken ankles and shoulder dysfunction, […]
By Elizabeth Akincilar, MSPT, Cofounder, PHRC Merrimack Pelvic pain is a complex condition that can have various causes, including medical conditions, injuries, and certain behaviors. In this blog, we will discuss 10 common behaviors that can potentially lead to pelvic pain(and potentially chronic pelvic pain). It’s important to note that while these behaviors may […]
By Kim Buonomo, DPT, PHRC Lexington We often see patients who report urinary incontinence as a symptom of their pelvic floor dysfunction. Incontinence is defined as the lack of voluntary control over one’s urination or defecation. Sometimes this is not the reason they seek treatment, but rather a secondary finding. I can’t tell you how […]
By: Melinda Fontaine, DPT, PHRC Walnut Creek You know that feeling when you just drank the equivalent to a big gulp and you haven’t had a bathroom break in over four hours. That sensation of your body telling you to get to the bathroom ASAP is called “urgency.” In case you wonder if urgency and […]
By Morgan Conner, DPT, PHRC Los Gatos Let’s set the stage here, you just peed your pants. I’ll let you fill in the details of the backstory, but here are a few possibilities. Maybe you just gave birth last week or perhaps six months ago (or six years ago!) and whenever you pick up your […]
The saying “getting the knack of it” refers to acquiring a skill to perform a specific task. In the world of pelvic floor rehabilitation, the Knack refers to performing a pelvic floor muscle contraction prior to an increase in intra abdominal pressure. This technique is most commonly used to prevent stress urinary incontinence (SUI), such […]
You may have heard murmurings at practice, the gym, in yoga, or maybe you’ve got your own experiences to share, of people describing incidences of urine loss while exercising. This is called Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI) and is described as a loss of urine associated with a stress to the body causing increased intra-abdominal pressure, […]
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 Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington The pelvic floor is a phrase used very frequently here on the blog as well as in our clinics, but to those unfamiliar with this area of the body, it may still be this illusive mystery. I want to break down the pelvic floor into each of the […]
At PHRC we treat a wide variety of patient populations. One population that we’re beginning to see more often is patients undergoing treatment for anal cancer. Recent research has shown that the incidence of anal cancer, which is linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV), is on the rise, especially among men and women under the […]
Sitting on the toilet!! Actually sitting, skin to porcelain. No more hovering! Even in public restrooms. I know, it’s going to be a tough paradigm shift since this issue is ubiquitous; one study, done in the UK, surveyed 528 women at a gynecology clinic and found that 85% reported that they […]
It’s National Bladder Health Week and we want to dedicate this blog post to our favorite (and only) urine collecting organ! The bladder is a vessel that sits on the pelvic floor and its primary function is to collect and hold our urine. It is made out of a hollow muscle called the detrusor which […]
Patient History Ted is a 67-year-old male with a primary concern of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and secondary concerns of erectile dysfunction. Ted reports he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September 2013 and underwent a “bilateral nerve-sparing radical suprapubic prostatectomy”, a procedure in which the nerves must be cut in order to remove the […]
If you’ve read any of my past blog contributions, you know I’m someone who has managed pelvic pain for the past decade, (if you haven’t read them, feel free to check them out here, here, and here) and while I was confident that in that time I had gamely faced and overcome all of the […]
