By: Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington With Halloween just occuring, I had been seeing skeleton decorations everywhere and it got me thinking about anatomy. Cue the ‘Dem Bones’ song we sang as kids – “the knee bones connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bones connected to the hip bone,” the ankle bones connected to the pelvic floor…wait, I didn’t …
Center for Disease Control Opioid Guidelines: notes from #IPPS2018
By: Kim Buonomo, PT, DPT, PHRC Lexington At the International Pelvic Pain Society’s annual meeting I had the great opportunity to listen to two presenters discuss the role of medications in managing pelvic pain. In this blog, I’ll be talking about Dr. Stephen Ziegler PhD, JD from Purdue University’s lecture regarding the opioid epidemic and ways that we can …
Don’t hold your breath! What you do when you poo
By: Kim Buonomo, DPT, Lexington Don’t hold your breath! What do you do when you poo? It sounds like something from Dr. Seuss. It’s a strange question, and some of our patients don’t know how to answer it. Next time you have a bowel movement, try to think about the specifics. How are your feet positioned? Are they flat on …
Using Cannabis to Treat Persistent Pelvic Pain
Introduction by Melinda Fontaine, article by guest bloggers Eloise Theisen, AGPCNP-BC and Timothy Byars From Melinda: For years, I have seen my patients using cannabis to treat a variety of conditions. A common complaint is the lack of guidance to do so. Recently, I found a medical professional who is not afraid to make specific recommendations. In fact, cannabis education, …
Part 2 of 2: What is a good pelvic PT session like?
Last week, in Part 1 of What is a good pelvic PT session like, we described what a pelvic floor physical therapy evaluation consists of and how we go about developing an assessment and setting goals to help our patients get better. This week we dive deeper into pelvic floor physical and occupational therapy treatment plans, patient education, and ongoing …
Part 1 of 2: What is a good pelvic PT session like?
Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center is proud to announce that we now have eight locations across the country. Our newest locations include Walnut Creek, CA, Bedford, NH and Westlake Village, CA. We pride ourselves on our constant commitment to give the best possible care for our patients. Patients suffering from long-standing pelvic conditions are often shuffled around from doctor to …
Wait there’s a (secret) society for that?
In the age of social media and WebMD, often times I will have a patient who has gained information from all sorts of sources all over the internet. It takes a lot of effort to weed through the information that the patient has “learned” and separate fact from fiction. One of the best and most rewarding parts of my job …
Wrap it Up: Condoms 101
By Jandra Mueller Here at PHRC we talk a lot about birth control. Primarily, hormonal oral contraceptives, but there are so many other options. This post will take an in-depth look at one of our favorite contraceptives: condoms. HISTORY Yes, jimmy hats, rubbers, french letters. They have been called many names, but at the end of the day the condom …
Fistula: The other F Word
Image by: erpete By: Kim Buonomo When I was asked to write a blog article, I wasn’t sure what topic I should write about. I read a lot of our previous articles for inspiration and realized a couple things: 1) The women who work here really know their stuff about the pelvic floor; and 2) No one has written an …
Mindfulness Meditation: Is it actually effective for treating chronic pain?
By Elizabeth Akincilar Mindfulness meditation. Even if you’re not exactly sure what it is, I’m going to bet you’ve heard of it. It has gotten a lot of attention recently. It’s everywhere. It’s not like the mediation of 20 years ago. Back then meditation was considered “alternative” or “fringe” that few people practiced, especially in western countries. Now, mindfulness has …
The Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center Turns 12!
By: Stephanie Prendergast On July 17th, 2006, Liz and Stephanie opened the doors to the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center in San Francisco. Their mission was to improve the quality of life of their patients and to contribute to the dynamic growth of their employees and students. They aspired to educate the community and medical professionals about pelvic …
What is Red Cord Physical and Occupational Therapy?
By Sarah Court, PT, DPT, e-RYT Traditionally, the thinking around how to approach low back and pelvic girdle pain has had a singular approach: find the ‘tight’ muscle and stretch it, and then find the ‘weak’ muscle and make it stronger. While it’s true that muscular tone imbalances can and do create the kind of postural disequilibrium …
Helping Medical Providers Understand Transgender Healthcare
As Pride Month comes to a close we share a guest blog from our longtime colleague in San Francisco, Dr. Heidi Wittenberg. Recently Dr. Wittenberg has decided to dedicate 100% of her career to working with transgender persons and we are honored to be working with her. PHRC has always been LGBTQ friendly and supportive, now we are excited …
Putting down the prescription pad: The opioid epidemic and pelvic pain
It should be a surprise to no one that we are in the middle of a serious, nationwide opioid epidemic. And to top that off, a crisis on opioid overdose. Did you know that on average 115 Americans die each day from opioid overdose?2 In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency and has since …
What We Didn’t Learn From Sex Ed: The Pleasure Piece
By Melinda Fontaine When you hear mention of “the talk” do you also picture a red faced kid and an adult with sweaty palms talking awkwardly around the topic of the birds and the bees? Thinking back on my childhood, I have to give credit to my parents and teachers for attempting this important task with such bravery. …
Posture Revisited: Sitting and the Pelvic Floor
Photo via Joe Loong via Flickr In previous entries, Britt beautifully took us through all things posture (Posture and the Pelvis Part One and Part Deux). Here are some important takeaways from her posts to consider as we explore how sitting may affect your pelvic floor: The diaphragm, trunk (back extensors, transversus abdominis, obliques, etc.) and pelvic floor muscles are …
The Blunt Truth About Medicinal Marijuana and Pelvic Pain: Part 2
By Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington First things first: if you haven’t already read the Part 1 to this post, please do so first! There are a few updates since my first post regarding laws and legislature for marijuana (cannabis) use throughout the United States. Updates Currently, 29 states plus Washington, D.C. have legalized the use of medicinal marijuana, …
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 and occupational therapistss, 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 …
PHRC teams up with Innovative Wellness in Walnut Creek!!!!
By Stephanie Prendergast The Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center is expanding to Walnut Creek! We are excited for a unique opportunity to team up with Rachael Cabreira, RN, BSN, MSN, FNP-C and Certified Sexual Health Clinician inside her new private practice, Innovative Wellness. People who know us at PHRC know that we believe in coordinated, interdisciplinary care for …
Mechanistic Interplay among Peripheral, Spinal and Brain Adaptions to Chronic Visceral Pain
For those of you following our journey through the 3rd World Congress on Abdominal and Pelvic Pain (#WCAPP17), here is another light-bulb lecture explaining the interconnections of chronic visceral pain. The presenter, Melissa A. Farmer, PhD, is a researcher at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University with a long-standing relationship with the International Pelvic Pain Society (the …
Autonomic Dysregulation in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders
By Melinda Fontaine, DPT, Walnut Creek At the 3rd World Congress on Abdominal and Pelvic Pain organized by the International Pelvic Pain Society, Professor Qasim Aziz spoke about Autonomic Dysregulation in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. Qasim Aziz, MBBS, FRCP, PhD is Professor of Neurogastroenterology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary, University …