By Karah Charette, DPT, PHRC San Francisco & Berkeley Pain might be one of the most pesky forms of mindfulness. When you are in pain, it is usually all you can think about. It draws you into the present moment whether you want to be or not. In this moment, there also often comes the fear that you have no …
How to Use Mindful Somatic Movement for Pelvic Pain Relief: Video Included!
By Maryssa Steffan, DPT, PHRC Berkeley Pelvic pain can feel like you are stuck in an endless cycle of symptoms. It may feel like you are doomed forever. When your body is tense and your fear is feeding the pain response, moving your body may be the last thing you want to do. You may wonder how you can possibly …
Considerations of Musculoskeletal Harm Reduction During Labor and Birth
View PostPeriod Health 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in 6th Grade but Didn’t, Part 3 of 3
By Jandra Mueller, DPT, MS, PHRC Encinitas In our third and final post of this series we share hormonal alterations that people may experience. In case you missed it, check out Period Health 101, Part One and Period Health 101, Part Two to best understand this post! Symptoms of Hormonal Alterations Hormonal birth control Why should hormonal …
Period Health 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in 6th Grade, But Didn’t… Part 2 of 3
By Jandra Mueller, DPT, MS, PHRC Encinitas In case you missed it, here is Period Health 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in 6th Grade, But Didn’t, Part 1. What are your hormones doing throughout the various phases? To understand this, refer to the chart below. It is actually helpful in understanding the hormonal shifts throughout the various …
EmBODYment
By Maryssa Steffen, DPT, PHRC Berkeley Have you ever noticed the relationship between your feelings and your bodily sensations? For example, have you ever noticed that gut-wrenching feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something is wrong, or you just got bad news? Or your heart rate suddenly increases when you get scared or nervous? …
More on Mindfulness for Pelvic Pain Relief
By Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington What comes to your mind when you think about the word mindfulness? Perhaps a sense of calmness. Maybe serenity or focus or peacefulness. All of these would apply. Or maybe you have no idea what mindfulness is; if that is the case then check out this blog post first: What is Mindfulness and …
Treating the Whole Person: Trauma-Informed Care Part 2
By Jillian Giannini, DPT, PHRC Westlake Village Just like it was discussed in our previous post it is not within the scope of practice for a physical and occupational therapists to treat trauma; however, educating yourself on ways to implement trauma-informed care can help you to provide a safe and conducive environment for a patient’s path to healing. In …
Behind the Mask: Perspective in the time of COVID
By Kim Buonomo, DPT, PHRC Lexington We are all getting used to a new idea of normal since COVID-19 became more prevalent. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a few things that I wanted to share. We are doing our parts at PHRC to stay safe and protect ourselves and each other by wearing masks. Below I share some …
Bridging the Gap Between Orthopedics and the Pelvic Floor: Why So Separate?
By Emily Schlaefer, PT, DPT Earlier this year, Emily was going to spend her final clinical rotation of PT school with us here at the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center. Unfortunately, COVID hit and after only one day Emily sadly had to leave the rotation. She shared this blog post regardless about her experience as a PT student observing …
No-Equipment Workout for a Happy Pelvis and Strong Core
By Courtney Edgecomb, DPT, PHRC Los Angeles Even before gyms and group fitness classes closed for COVID-19, I was a big fan of at-home workouts. Don’t get me wrong, I love the community, atmosphere, and variety of equipment available from gyms and classes, but the price can get high and I run like the wolves to avoid traffic or parking …
Online Pelvic Floor Physical and Occupational Therapy Appointments Are Now Available!
It’s a terrifying time and we’ve got you covered. We hope everyone is staying home and healthy as we wait out the current COVID-19 pandemic. The safety of our patients, staff, and the community is important to us. As a result of government directives, our Lexington, MA office is closed until April 6th, our San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Gatos, Walnut …
Success Story: How Jennifer Beat Endometriosis
By Jandra Mueller, DPT, MS, PHRC Encinitas Jennifer was referred to PHRC by her urogynecologist who diagnosed her with interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS). For more information on this condition, check out Melinda’s webinar on IC/PBS. She was diagnosed with IC in 2012/2013 because she had been experiencing significant cramping in her bladder, as well as urinary urgency and frequency. …
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 …
Why Does the Area Between My Balls and My Butt Hurt? Tyler’s Male Pelvic Pain Success Story
When I first discussed sharing Tyler’s story on this blog, we talked about why men are not aware of pelvic floor PT. We talked about how most websites list “chronic prostatitis” or “male pelvic pain syndrome” to define his symptoms. He shared with me what men are most likely typing into Google when looking for treatment for symptoms similar to …
Hormonal Changes in Menopause and What You Can Do About It
By: Rachel Daof, DPT Los Angeles PHRC members, Stephanie Prendergast, Courtney Edgecomb, and I, Rachel Daof, went to a dinner to discuss Intrarosa with guest speaker Dr. Irwin Goldstein. One of the major points of the night was this: menopause is a chronic progressive, degenerative condition, and it does not improve without treatment. This hit home to all of the …
The 4th Trimester: Postpartum Pelvic Pain is Common but Not Normal
By: Courtney Edgecomb, DPT Postpartum Pelvic Floor Physical and Occupational Therapy is increasingly utilized to help new moms recover from pregnancy and delivery. Is pain normal after giving birth? Of course that is an extremely open-ended question and I would get different answers from almost every single mom (and from each of her pregnancies). But it is hard to tease …
Moisturize My Vagina?! What you need to know
By: Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington If you are anything like me, you most likely have a plethora of moisturizers at home (hand lotion, face lotion, body lotion, etc.), but what you probably do not have is a vaginal moisturizer. You might ask, “What is a vaginal moisturizer?” A vaginal moisturizer rehydrates dry mucosal tissue, is absorbed into the skin …
What to Know About Your Menstrual Cycle
By: Rachel Daof, DPT Here at PHRC we see conditions that affect that dreaded time of the month: our periods. As we have written before, conditions like endometriosis can directly affect menstruation. Other menstrual related issues include period cramps, nausea, bowel movement issues, headaches, and many other symptoms all driven by our cycle. To many of us, these are things …
What is the Knack and why does it work to prevent urine leakage?
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 as when a person experiences …
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 …