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Postpartum Urinary Incontinence is Common: Here’s How We Can Help

In Pelvic Health, Pregnancy and Postpartum Pelvic Health, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Lauren OpatrnyLeave a Comment

By Lauren Opatrny, PT, DPT, PHRC Berkeley & San Francisco *all names have been changed to maintain patient privacy   Background   Rachel* is a 32 year old experiencing urinary incontinence after giving birth to her baby in December 2020. When she was eight months postpartum and still experiencing incontinence, her doctor referred her to pelvic physical therapy. Six weeks …

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How Pelvic Floor PT Helps Children with Constipation & Incontinence

In pediatric pelvic floor dysfunction, Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, pelvic floor physical therapy, Pelvic Health, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Shannon PacellaLeave a Comment

By Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington Did You Know… Bedwetting affects 15%-22% of children, and of those children, 10%-25% have urinary leakage during the day.1  One of the primary causes of bedwetting and daytime wetting is constipation.1 10%-25% of children who bed wet also have difficulty controlling their bowels.1 Awareness of bladder sensation and control of bladder begins between one …

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Gotta Go Right Now: Urinary Urgency Explained

In Female Interstitial Cystitis / Painful Bladder Syndrome, Stress Urinary Incontinence, Urinary urgency by Melinda FontaineLeave a Comment

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 the frequent need to urinate …

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Stress Urinary Incontinence in Athletes: Why You Leak When You Exercise

In Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_adminLeave a Comment

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, such as running, jumping, lifting, …

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Understanding Pelvic Floor Movement

In Low-Tone Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Post-Surgical Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_admin6 Comments

  By Katie Hunter, DPT   Drop, push, bulge, squeeze.  These words are used regularly when talking about pelvic floor function but what do they actually mean?   We often talk about how the pelvic floor muscles become dysfunctional and can cause daily symptoms of pelvic pain, bladder and bowel urgency and frequency, incontinence, prolapse, and sexual dysfunction. Today, I …

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Posture and the Pelvis: Part One

In Female Pelvic Pain, Male Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_admin1 Comment

By Admin “In all nature structure determines function” – William Herbert Sheldon, father of somatotyping “Form and function are a unity, two sides of a coin” – Ida P. Rolf, biochemist and fascial genius “Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” – Schoolhouse Rock, how us 30+s learnt grammar   Structure and function are intricately connected. Our posture is the structure in …

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Diaphragmatic breathing, pelvic pain, peeing and pooping

In Low-Tone Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_admin5 Comments

    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 therapy and/or exercise with strengthening, stretching or the need to get the heart rate up. However, with the pelvic floor muscles, especially for …

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Diastasis Recti: Closing The Gap Between Research and Function

In Female Pelvic Pain, Pregnancy and Postpartum Pelvic Health, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_adminLeave a Comment

By Admin   During pregnancy and the postpartum period, many women suffer from both functional and cosmetic issues caused from the widening of the abdominal wall from stretch and pressure generated from the growing uterus. This stretching can result in a separation of the rectus abdominis muscle, known as a diastasis recti (DR).  Diastasis recti occur in approximately 66% of …

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Kegel What?

In Pelvic Organ Prolapse, Post-Surgical Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_admin3 Comments

  By Admin   The Kegel, the black box of the exercise world.   Are you really doing it right?     In today’s post we are going to review some simple exercises to help get to know the pelvic floor muscles. Now, I strongly recommend going through my past post “Exercises for Short/Tight Pelvic Floor” first. Generally speaking, patients …

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Jagged Little Pill: How Oral Contraceptives Wreak Havoc on the Female Body

In Female Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence, Vulvodynia by Joshua Gonzalez, MD9 Comments

By Joshua Gonzalez, MD   The advent of oral birth control pills in the 1960s was heralded as a huge victory for women’s rights.  Finally, women could take control of their bodies and their fertility.  Since then, oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) have become ubiquitous in reproductive aged women with nearly 10 million women today using The Pill as their primary …

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A Mesh of a Situation

In Female Pudendal Neuralgia, Pelvic Organ Prolapse, Post-Surgical Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Elizabeth Akincilar7 Comments

  By Elizabeth Akincilar, MPT, Cofounder, PHRC Merrimack   In May 2015 a Delaware jury ordered Boston Scientific, a medical device company, to pay a woman $100 million for pain complications following vaginal mesh placement for treatment of pelvic organ prolapse. A few months prior to that a Texas woman was awarded $73 million for similar complications. Some think that …

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How PT can help with Anal Cancer Treatment

In Post-Surgical Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation, Stress Urinary Incontinence by pelv_adminLeave a Comment

  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 age of 45. Although we’re …

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Male Pelvic Pain Explained: Steve’s Success Story

In Male Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Elizabeth Akincilar8 Comments

By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer I am happy to say that in March we celebrated our one year anniversary in our Boston area office!! In February 2016 we were excited to welcome our new staff, Melissa Hines, DPT, staff physical therapist and Erika Toronto, Administrative Assistant. It has been a crazy year, but I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know new colleagues and …

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Sit yo’ a** down! The importance of sitting on the toilet

In Female Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Stephanie Prendergast10 Comments

        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 crouched over public toilets while …

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A Balm for Belly Blues: Maya Abdominal Massage & Gynecological Health

In Female Pelvic Pain, Pregnancy and Postpartum Pelvic Health, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Stephanie Prendergast6 Comments

This week, our guest blogger Bria Larson, MS, LAc, FABORM  will discuss The Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy. By Bria Larson The abdomen and pelvis are the source of our creativity and nourishment.  They are also vulnerable to injury from physical and emotional trauma, disease and dietary stressors.  Based on the healing traditions of the Maya, as taught by Dr. …

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The Ultimate Solution To Help Mothers Reconnect With Their Bodies And Rebuild Post-Baby Foundations

In Female Pelvic Pain, Pregnancy and Postpartum Pelvic Health, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Stephanie Prendergast1 Comment

By Wendy Powell, Postpartum Exercise Expert, Founder + CEO of MuTu System   This information relates to every woman who is having, has had, or will ever have a baby, who wants to regain full use and look of her beautiful pre-baby body (who doesn’t?). Whether she has just had a baby, has teenage children, or if she is about to give …

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Gwyneth’s Goop and the Pelvic Floor: What They Missed

In Female Interstitial Cystitis / Painful Bladder Syndrome, Female Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Stephanie Prendergast4 Comments

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 …

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The Case of Post-prostatectomy Urinary Incontinence

In Male Pelvic Pain, Stress Urinary Incontinence by Stephanie Prendergast12 Comments

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 cancerous tissue, later that fall. …