What is Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy

Maybe you have heard this term, maybe you have not. But if you are here, then you must have some pelvic floor concerns and a pelvic floor physical therapist is the best place for you to start! 

Let’s start at the beginning. A physical therapist is usually a Master’s or Doctorate level practitioner who has gone through 2-4 years of education beyond a Bachelor’s degree. By definition from The Oxford Languages, a physical therapist is “a person qualified to treat disease, injury or deformity by physical methods such as massage, heat treatment and exercise rather than by drugs or surgery”. We are the movement and musculoskeletal experts to help improve the quality of life in people of all ages.

A Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist (or also called a pelvic health physical therapist) is a physical therapist who has taken additional training beyond that Master’s or Doctorate level degree to learn about the pelvic floor, bladder dysfunction, bowel dysfunction, pelvic pain, pregnancy and post partum issues and more. Pelvic floor physical therapy is a highly specialized segment of physical therapy and although it is looking at specific pelvic floor dysfunctions, the physical therapist will still look at the person as a whole because everything above and below the pelvis can affect and be affected by the pelvis. 

I have been a physical therapist since 2003 and have been working with pelvic floor patients for nearly that entire time. Since 2003, I have taken on average 2-3 advanced training courses per year to learn more and more techniques to help women with pelvic floor dysfunction. 

Some things that I see frequently:

• Urinary incontinence

• Urinary frequency

• Night time frequency

• Urinary urgency

• Pelvic pain

• Constipation

• Bowel urgency

• Pain during intercourse

• Prenatal pelvic, back and hip pain

• Postpartum pain 

• Diastasis Recti Abdominus

As a pelvic floor physical therapist in the clinic, I look at everything from the head to the toes because it can ALL affect or be affected by the pelvic floor. I do also assess your pelvic floor muscles both externally and internally (yep……internally!) to see if you can contract AND relax your muscles. So many women think pelvic floor physical therapy is just Kegels but did you know that if you cannot relax your pelvic floor muscles, you should absolutely not be doing Kegels?! 

I also work with many women virtually but this looks a little different than in the clinic. There is no exam so I rely on information from you about how you feel. There are a few conditions that really need the hands on treatment so I sometimes will refer women who come to me virtually to a local pelvic floor physical therapist for that hands on treatment but there is much that can still be done without that examination. 

One last little tid bit of information on pelvic floor physical therapy………in many European countries, every woman that delivers a baby gets 6 pelvic floor physical therapy visits to help heal her body after pregnancy and delivery!!! Doesn’t that sound amazing?!

If you think you are having some pelvic floor dysfunction, contact us or your local pelvic floor physical therapist for treatment. You can also contact me for help finding someone local to you.