What Types of Patients Need Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?

By: Marin Cole

I am calling this blog post “did you know?” because there are so many things that we as pelvic floor physical therapists think of as “common knowledge” but we have come to learn they are not.

NO, Peeing your pants is not normal.

I don’t care what your mom told you, or your friend, or your husband, or your doctor. It doesn’t matter your age, your gender, or your past medical history, you owe it to yourself to tell someone about leakage if you’re experiencing it because there are options other than spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on pads!!

YES, we treat men.

This is one that I get A LOT! When you enter into our office you’ll see an all female staff, we talk a lot about pregnancy and postpartum recovery, and the majority of our patients sitting in the waiting room are female, but we do also treat men, and quite a few of them! We treat men of all ages experiencing pelvic pain, men who have had a prostatectomy or prehab before their surgery, men who have urinary and fecal urgency or incontinence, and men with hip and back pain. 

NO, Kegels aren’t always the answer!

Unfortunately when people experience symptoms related to their pelvic floor or their bladder they usually turn to the internet, which tells them to just “kegel.” Are you as confused as I am, or is that just me? In the majority of cases our patient’s symptoms improve when we teach them how to RELAX their pelvic floor through breathing, stretches, and manual therapy and then educate them how to correctly do a “kegel?” A kegel is both a contraction AND a relaxation of your pelvic floor. Moral of the story… if you are having issues and google “what do I do when…” and it tells you to kegel, it’s time to talk to your doctor and ask for a referral to a pelvic floor physical therapist! 

NO, unfortunately we don’t learn much of this in physical therapy school but YES, we have to go through a lot of training and certifications to do what we do!

All of our therapists and Empower Your Pelvis have graduated with our doctorates of physical therapy from graduate programs around the United States. In addition to that we have all taken extensive course work through Herman and Wallace or the American Physical Therapy Association. Not only have we practiced all of the skills that we use in our office, but we have had everything that we work on with patients done to us as well!