View Post

Hormonal Prepartum Changes and Postpartum Complaints

In Female Pelvic Pain, Pain, pelvic floor physical therapy, Pelvic Health, Pelvic Pain, Pregnancy and Postpartum Pelvic Health by Stephanie PrendergastLeave a Comment

By Stephanie Prendergast, MPT, Cofounder, PHRC Los Angeles   Hormones play a vital role in day-to-day function. They allow for the organs to communicate with each other so that we can filter toxic waste, grow muscle, sleep well . . . . and even grow a human! Let’s take a look at what happens during pregnancy: Estrogen goes up, elevating …

View Post

Good News! Interstitial Cystitis is treatable! A Much Needed Q&A

In Female Interstitial Cystitis / Painful Bladder Syndrome, Male Interstitial Cystitis / Nonbacterial Chronic Prostatitis / Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome, pelvic floor physical therapy by Stephanie Prendergast1 Comment

By Stephanie Prendergast, MPT, PHRC West Los Angeles   What is Interstitial Cystitis? IC is a pelvic pain syndrome characterized by irritated bladder symptoms. This condition is associated with painful sex, pelvic floor dysfunction, vestibulodynia, endometriosis, and gut dysbiosis. What are the symptoms? Symptoms include bladder pain, urinary urgency, urinary frequency, pain worsened with bladder filling, nocturia, and dysuria. The …

View Post

Male Urinary Dysfunction; Kevin’s Bladder Success Story

In Male Interstitial Cystitis / Nonbacterial Chronic Prostatitis / Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome, Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, pelvic floor physical therapy, Pelvic Health by Tiffany YuenLeave a Comment

By Tiffany Yuen, DPT, PHRC Los Gatos The History of Kevin’s Symptoms and How He Found PHRC   “Tiffany did an excellent job helping to loosen the muscles in my pelvic area; I experienced minimal discomfort during our sessions but saw marked improvement in urgency and frequency as long as I showed up and did the basic exercises she prescribed …

View Post

Working on mind over bladder? Urine good company

In Female Interstitial Cystitis / Painful Bladder Syndrome, Male Interstitial Cystitis / Nonbacterial Chronic Prostatitis / Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome, pelvic floor physical therapy by Molly BachmannLeave a Comment

By Molly Bachmann PT, DPT, PHRC San Francisco   Urination is one of the most reliable body functions a person can have. You go about your daily routine, you receive a little message to your brain that says “Hey there! It’s me, your bladder. We’re pretty fully down here. Do you think you could empty me?” You listen to your …

View Post

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 …

View Post

Urination Nation: How Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Eliminates Urinary Incontinence

In Urinary Incontinence by Kim Buonomo1 Comment

By Kim Buonomo, DPT, PHRC Lexington We often see patients who report urinary incontinence as a symptom of their pelvic floor dysfunction. Incontinence is defined as the lack of voluntary control over one’s urination or defecation. Sometimes this is not the reason they seek treatment, but rather a secondary finding. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something …

View Post

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 …

View Post

What is the Knack and why does it work to prevent urine leakage?

In Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Urinary Incontinence by pelv_adminLeave a Comment

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 …

View Post

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, …

View Post

The Ankle Bone is Connected to the Pelvic Floor Muscle Function

In Pelvic Floor Dysfunction by Shannon Pacella1 Comment

By: Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington With Halloween just occuring, I had been seeing skeleton decorations everywhere and it got me thinking about anatomy. Cue the ‘Dem Bones’ song we sang as kids – “the knee bones connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bones connected to the hip bone,” the ankle bones connected to the pelvic floor…wait, I didn’t …

View Post

Posture Revisited: Sitting and the Pelvic Floor

In Pelvic Floor Dysfunction by pelv_admin4 Comments

Photo via Joe Loong via Flickr In previous entries, Britt beautifully took us through all things posture (Posture and the Pelvis Part One and Part Deux). Here are some important takeaways from her posts to consider as we explore how sitting may affect your pelvic floor:   The diaphragm, trunk (back extensors, transversus abdominis, obliques, etc.) and pelvic floor muscles are …

View Post

PHRC teams up with Innovative Wellness in Walnut Creek!!!!

In Pelvic Floor Dysfunction by Stephanie Prendergast3 Comments

    By Stephanie Prendergast   The Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center is expanding to Walnut Creek! We are excited for a unique opportunity to team up with Rachael Cabreira, RN, BSN, MSN, FNP-C and Certified Sexual Health Clinician inside her new private practice, Innovative Wellness. People who know us at PHRC know that we believe in coordinated, interdisciplinary care for …

View Post

Brace yourselves: protecting your pelvic floor during CrossFit and loaded exercise

In Female Pelvic Pain, Low-Tone Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Male Pelvic Pain by pelv_admin2 Comments

If you are a male and either currently participate in CrossFit workouts or another form of Olympic weightlifting, and have developed one or more of these symptoms: perineum pain with sitting, lower abdominal pain with intense activity or ejaculation, testicular pain that radiates to the abdomen or the vice versa, and urinary hesitancy with urgency and frequency, this blog is …

View Post

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 …

View Post

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 …

View Post

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 …

View Post

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. …