What Is Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?
Maybe you’re reading this because you’re in pain. Maybe you’re reading this because you pee your pants on occasions that are too common and under circumstances that are less-than-convenient.
Maybe it hurts you or your partner to have sex. It’s possible that you’re here because you can’t sit for prolonged periods of time without being in pain, or you’re having trouble going to the bathroom.
Perhaps you are pregnant and hoping to prepare for giving birth, or you are postpartum and looking to guide your miracle-building body toward its optimal state of function. The list goes on and on. If there is one thing we know for sure, it’s this: whatever your reason for having landed on this page, you’re in the right place. There is hope and healing for whatever pelvic floor dysfunction you are facing. Know that we are here to help you.
Before diving into pelvic floor physical therapy, let’s first start with the pelvic floor. Namely—what is the pelvic floor, and what does it do? Walk through this page with us as we guide you through the answer to these important questions.
What is the Pelvic Floor?
Getting to Know Pelvic Floor Musculature
The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that attaches to the front, back, and sides of the pelvis and to the tailbone and sacrum. These muscles support the pelvic organs, including the bladder, uterus or prostate, and rectum, and wrap around the urethra, vagina (in women), and rectum. Coordinated contraction and relaxation of these muscles helps control bladder and bowel function.
For your pelvic floor to perform optimally, these muscles must be able to lengthen to allow blood flow and mobility of your connective and muscle tissue.
Essentially, it helps to think of your pelvic floor as a group of muscles that sit inside your pelvic “bowl”. It has a variety of purposes such as supporting organs, aiding in sexual function, and providing a role in urine and bowel elimination (more on this in a minute).
Now, what if we told you that your pelvic floor was an essential part of your core? Yeah, not like the 6-pack part of your core. This is a common misconception. If you thought your core was the sheet of abdominal muscles behind your belly button, think again. In reality, your core is more like a can of coke than a “6-pack” of them.
When we think of "core" we often think of our abs, but there's much more to your body's central trunk than meets that common misconception.
We like to tell patients to imagine their trunk shaped like a can of coke. The lid of the can is your diaphragm, the front wall of the can is your abdomen, the back wall of the can is your spine, and the bottom of the can is your pelvic floor.
So, why is this important?
For one thing, think about your breath! The pelvic floor (bottom of the can) faces upward toward our respiratory diaphragm (lid). Think: parachute of a diaphragm, bowl of a pelvic floor. Ideally, when we take a relaxed breath, we take air in, our diaphragm should flatten (tummies out), the pelvic floor should relax and expand downward simultaneously. Then when we exhale, the diaphragm should go back up and the pelvic floor also pulls back up to resting position.
This is just one example of the many incredibly important functions of our pelvic floor, and how habits (such as faulty breath-holding) repeated over time can manifest as pelvic pain or pelvic floor dysfunction.
In fact, there are so many lifestyles, habits, hobbies, injuries and life events that lead to various pelvic floor symptoms that we literally label ourselves as pelvic floor detectives—we take on every unique case with a magnifying glass to determine your diagnosis and your (necessarily) unique plan of healing.
What Does the Pelvic Floor Do?
At Sarton Physical Therapy, we like to say that the pelvic floor has 5 essential “S” functions: support, sphincter, sexual, stability, and sump pump.
SUPPORT FUNCTION
There are 3 layers to your pelvic floor. They hang sort of like a hammock, from front to back and from side to side. The two layers that are closer to the surface of your body tend to support the openings. The third, most inward layer which tends to support the organs, and stretches more toward the back of your pelvic floor. Think of this supportive layer as a basket that keep organs in place, particularly with impact.
SPHINCTER FUNCTION
This function ensures that things are kept closed when we want them closed (i.e. preventing leakage of urine and fecal matter), and that things open when we need them to (i.e. successful urination and bowel movement).
SEXUAL FUNCTION
The pelvic floor muscles help us achieve arousal and orgasm.
STABILITY FUNCTION
The pelvic floor itself creates a lot of stability across the pelvis and and transfers force, especially correlating to what’s happening in our legs and hips.
SUMP PUMP FUNCTION
The pelvic floor region helps to move lymph fluid and blood through the pelvis and up into the trunk.
Know the True Source of Your Pelvic Pain or Pelvic Floor Dysfunction.
Did you know that your low back pain, hip pain, lower quadrant pain, bladder urgency/frequency, vulvar pain or coccyx pain may actually not be coming from these sources? Rather, it may be rooted in pelvic floor muscular dysfunction. Why? The brain only perceives where the pain is felt and not the actual source of the pain. Fascinating, we know (we nerd out over all things pelvic floor).
So, part of your healing journey will include you being a detective, too—going to work with your practitioner to figure out any referral patterns that exist and are rooted in your pelvic floor musculature. You can then eradicate any underlying sources and causes of your pelvic pain, sexual pain and even orthopedic pain!
So, What is Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?
Our passion is to provide healing that lasts. Period.
How do we do that? Our strategic approach to helping people move optimally is to look at the person’s whole body as a system that works and functions together.
Healing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. With two cases are hardly the same, we believe in creating a customized healing plan unique to your pain capacity, medical history, daily pain patterns, and so much more. Our comprehensive evaluation will help to identify the causes driving your symptoms. An extensive medical history and physical exam reveals whether poor posture, faulty biomechanics, tight muscles, trigger points, weakness, or nerve disorders are part of your problem. Additionally, restricted scar tissue or adhesions, connective tissue and fascial restriction are always assessed.
Your individualized treatment program may include any or all of the following:
Manual therapy including myofascial release, trigger point release, joint mobilization, muscle energy techniques and connective tissue mobilization
Pilates based therapeutic exercise
Visceral manipulation
Scar tissue adhesion release
Strain or counter strain
Nerve flossing and neural tension releases
Class IV warm laser therapy
Neuromuscular re-education techniques
Core stabilization training
Functional exercise and prescriptive therapeutic exercise
Physioball and foam roller exercise
Intramuscular trigger point therapy injections
Postural re-education
Patient and family education
Instruction in a home exercise program
Pelvic floor biofeedbac
Your Treatment plan is designed to fit your unique needs
For more information about our personalized treatment approach, take a look at our Sarton Physical Therapy Healing Heart®
Always prioritizing the latest technology
Sarton Physical Therapy is excited to have a Class IV Warm Laser to help patients maximize their progress towards long term goals of decreased pain and increased function.
