By: Melinda Fontaine 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 the frequent need to urinate are common problems, look …
Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome Resource List
By Melinda Fontaine, DPT, PT 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 find …
The Connection Between SIBO and Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome (and How to Relieve Both)
By Guest Blogger Jessica Drummond MPT, CCN, CHC One of the reasons that relieving pelvic pain is so challenging is that pain in different systems within the pelvis can overlap. For example, in rats where experimental colitis (colon irritation) was induced, many of the rats also experienced bladder and urethral pain (Yoshikawa et al., 2015). Thus, there is …
The Most Proven IC Treatment: Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
By Guest Blogger Nicole Cozean, PT, DPT, WCS and author of The Interstitial Cystitis Solution Pelvic floor physical therapy is the most proven treatment for interstitial cystitis. It’s the only therapy given an evidence grade of ‘A’ by the American Urological Association and recommended in the first line of medical treatment. But patients often wonder how does treating …
Beating Interstitial Cystitis
By Stephanie Prendergast “Thousands of people with Interstitial Cystitis live healthy, pain-free lives and so can you.” – The Interstitial Cystitis Solution, Nicole Cozean PT, DPT, WCS In honor of Bladder Health Month this week’s blog is dedicated to Interstitial Cystitis/ Painful Bladder Syndrome. IC/PBS is a treatable pelvic pain syndrome affecting roughly 3 million men and 9 …
Physical Therapy Treatment for Interstitial Cystitis and Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome
By Stephanie Prendergast Urinary tract infections hurt. It hurts as your bladder fills, you constantly feel the need to pee and when you do it feels like knives are coming out of your body. You do not experience post-void relief and immediately feel like you need to pee again. Your doctor asks you to urinate urinate in a …
The Brain Below: The Role Your Gut May Play in Pelvic Pain
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer When is the last time you heard a little voice inside you that tried to give you advice or warn you of danger? Some describe it as ‘butterflies,’ others a ‘gut feeling.’ That feeling can be attributed to the extremely extensive network of over 100 million neurons that make up our gut. That’s more neurons …
A Second Look at Pudendal Neuralgia.
By Stephanie Prendergast I treated my first patient with Pudendal Neuralgia in 2002. As a young, excitable pelvic floor physical therapist, I was on a mission to help people suffering from pelvic pain and thought it would be just like what they said in PT school: stretch, strengthen, achieve goals, discharge. So when my patient began treatment for PN, I …
Gwyneth’s Goop and the Pelvic Floor: What They Missed
By Stephanie Prendergast Last week, Gwyneth Paltrow’s popular newsletter featured an article on pelvic floor muscles, which prompted numerous emails and tweets in my direction. Apparently this is a topic that makes my friends and colleagues think of me. While pondering why everyone, except for me, seems to be reading Goop, I took a look. I am glad to see …