By Elizabeth Akincilar, PHRC CoFounder As a once long time resident of San Francisco, June was always one of my favorite months of the year. “June Gloom”; many coastal Californians often refer to it for its frequent foggy weather and consider it one of the worst months of the year. Yes, even with its foggy weather, I still looked forward …
Childhood Constipation and Bedwetting: The Pertinent Poop
By Melinda Fontaine, Clinic Director of PHRC Walnut Creek Child: “Ms. Melinda, why did you choose to do what you do?” Ms. Melinda: “Two reasons: I get to wear sneakers to work, and I get to laugh at potty humor forever!” Did you know that pelvic floor physical and occupational therapistss also work with children?! I help all people pee …
One-on-One Pelvic Floor Physical and Occupational 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 …
Tips for Managing the Stress of COVID-19 and Your Pelvic Floor
By Morgan Conner, DPT, PHRC Los Gatos A lot has changed in the past few weeks and days. Since, the WHO has declared a pandemic for the novel coronavirus (the virus itself is called “SARS-CoV-2” and what it causes is the “Covid-19” disease),1,2 many of us have probably seen our daily routines put in a blender or chucked out the …
Pelvic Health Products We Love: Part One
By Jandra Mueller, DPT, MS, PHRC Encinitas Here at PHRC we regularly discover all sorts of new and cool products that are available for people’s pelvic health needs. I am amazed at some of the products available and that are being developed and am so thankful there are people that are creating these products because they are SOOO helpful! Pelvic …
Why Do We Dance? For Pelvic Health!
By Maryssa Steffen, DPT, PHRC Berkeley I am a physical and occupational therapists, but my other life is a dancer. I have danced for almost 33 years and I have no doubt that it fully connects me to myself and strengthens my empathy towards others. After working with patients and delving into the research that supports dance therapy, I wanted …
Enjoying Sex While Healing From Pelvic Pain
This week, long-time colleague Lorraine Faehnedrich guest blogs for PHRC. Lorraine’s bio and information on her courses can be found at the end of the post. On April 2 Lorraine will be interviewing our own Katie Hunter about how pelvic floor physical and occupational therapy can help women recover from painful sex. Stay tuned to our social media for more …
Pelvic Pain Explained: Endometriosis + Resource List
By Jandra Mueller, DPT, PHRC Encinitas 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 6 videos and blog posts that we hope people find useful. This week, in our sixth …
Pain Free After Thirty-Five Years: Christina’s Success Story
By: Kimberly Buonomo, PT, DPT, PHRC Lexington Christina is a 75 year old patient I had the pleasure of seeing last summer. She came to me with a 30+ year history of pain which started as back pain during pregnancy. By the time she got to PHRC, her pain had spread to her pelvic floor, groin, adductors, low back, piriformis …
How to Tackle Pelvic Pain, Joseph’s Success Story
As physical and occupational therapistss, we often refer to our patients’ last day with us as Graduation Day. I always enjoy Graduation Day because it means the patient has accomplished their goals; their symptoms have reduced, they are able to function without limitations, and they are leaving as happier, healthier individuals. To put it plainly, they don’t need me anymore. …
Foam Rolling for Pelvic Pain Relief
By: Courtney Edgecomb, DPT, PHRC Los Angeles The very first time I came across a foam roller was in high school when I went to physical and occupational therapy for back pain. At that time, the main product was simply a long, circular white piece of soft foam. It wasn’t special but it certainly helped me continue playing soccer without …
How Pelvic Floor Physical and Occupational Therapy Helped Me Recover From Vaginismus
Last month, Sigourney shared Martha’s Success Story, told from her perspective as Martha’s pelvic floor physical and occupational therapists. This week, Martha was kid enough to share her experience, in her own words. We hope her story provides hope for the many, many other women suffering from primary vaginismus or other causes of painful sex. We are sharing many success …
Young Men Get Pelvic Floor Dysfunction. Here’s How Chris Recovered with Pelvic Floor Physical and Occupational Therapy!
By: Rachel Daof, DPT People often ask me what symptoms men present with that land them in pelvic floor physical and occupational therapy. The truth is, men suffer from similar issues as women when it involves their pelvic floor: bowel, bladder, sexual dysfunction, and/or pain in the pelvic region. Furthermore, it’s not only the elder male population that can …
Finding the Right Bike Saddle for Pelvic Comfort
By Morgan Connor, DPT, PHRC Los Gatos Since I am sure you haven’t memorized the PHRC staff bios, I’ll give you a little background on myself: Last year I got into triathlons and now spend a lot of time riding my bike. This past spring I finally bit the bullet and decided to get a bike for myself. After riding …
Finding Pleasure in Something that was Always Painful: Sam’s Success Story
By: Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC, Lexington Sam came to the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center in the beginning of May this year, after her primary care physician recommended seeing a pelvic floor physical and occupational therapists as she reported having pain with vaginal penetration. Here’s what Sam had to say: “I am 41 years old, and spent most of my …
Thrive with Age: Menopause Solutions
“It’s NOT all downhill from here! When you learn how to find balance in your life and in your hormones, it’s really possible to feel vital through perimenopause, menopause and beyond.” DR. AMY DAY, FOUNDER, THE WOMEN’S VITALITY CENTER IN BERKELEY, CA Too many women are silently struggling through bothersome symptoms of perimenopause and menopause on their own. Women often …
Your Body After Baby: 5 methods to safely return to fitness following pregnancy
By: Guest Blogger – Kristen Herlihy On January 16, 2019 at 1:30pm EST PHRC Cofounder Elizabeth Akincilar and Baby Boot Camp instructor Kristen Herlihy will be discussing postpartum fitness! For information on how to tune in and listen, please visit their Facebook page. In the spirit of this talk, Kristen wanted to share her thoughts on our blog. As …
Managing Life on or after “The Pill”
By: Jandra Mueller, DPT, MS, PHRC Encinitas If you are a female reader of our blog, have experienced painful intercourse, and happened to have come to the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (PHRC) for treatment, then you are probably familiar with our talk about how systemic birth control like oral contraceptives (OCPs) or “The Pill,” may be the underlying culprit. …
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 …
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 …
Sex Therapy and CBT for Pain with Sex
In 2012, The Journal of Sexual Medicine published an article, What we don’t talk about when we don’t talk about sex: results of a national survey of U.S. obstetrician/gynecologists. The results from the survey revealed that though Ob/gyns routinely (63%) assess their patients’ sexual activities, only 40% of them ask their female patients about sexual problems. Sexual problems may include …