What is Pelvic Floor Therapy?
The pelvic floor composes for 3 layers of muscles that have three functions. These muscles helps support your organs, helps provide stability to your pelvis when you move and assist with: urethral, vaginal and anal sphincter functions. Pelvic floor therapy focuses on addressing impairments of the pelvic floor muscles in order to improve the signs and symptoms of the patient and their overall quality of life.
Why Might I Need Pelvic Floor Therapy?
Common symptoms that may require pelvic floor therapy typically stem to weakness in the pelvic floor muscle but also other supporting muscles of the pelvis as they work together. Some of the other conditions may be due to muscles being shortened and pelvic floor therapy would be spent decreasing this tension to allow these muscles to function more properly.
Signs and Symptoms
- Increase frequency of urination (<2 hours)
- Urgency- feeling like you aren’t going to make it to the bathroom
- Leaking with activity just as running, jumping, coughing sneezing
- Hesitancy- sitting down to utilize the bathroom and not being able to go right away
- Unable to empty completely or feeling like you’re not emptying completely
- Increase urination at night >2 times
- Dribbling after urination
- Straining to urinate or during bowel movements
- Pain with urination or burning
- Pain with bowel movements- before during or after
- Constipation, bloating or gas
- Incontinence of stool
- Pain with intercourse- initial penetration, during or post
- Feeling of your organs “falling out”
- Pain with OBGYN visits, tampon use, tight clothing or wiping
- Males having difficulty achieving or maintaining erections
- Males have ejaculation difficulty
- Pelvic pain, groin pain, abdominal pain, rectal pain
What is the Pelvic Floor?
The pelvic floor is a layer of three muscles in your pelvis that assists with pelvic stability when you are moving. Your pelvic floor helps to support your internal organs and assists with sexual appreciation, urinary and bowel function. Weakness in these muscles can cause sagging that leads to stress incontinence. Rises in intra-abdominal pressure (things like exercising, sneezing, running, or coughing) can cause the pelvic floor to fail to contract. This leads to leakage.
Can I Avoid Pelvic Floor Therapy?
Making sure to have regular checkups with your doctor and reporting any issues that occur can be one way to ensure some conditions are not present. Another proactive measure may be attending Pelvic Floor PT before conditions worsen. Some of the conditions may occur from different factors overtime and it is important when initial signs and symptoms are noted to seek a health care professional to help resolve the issue before it worsens.
What Conditions Might Require Pelvic Floor Therapy?
- Prolapse- rectum, uterus or bladder; common symptoms include feeling like your organs are falling out
- Stress incontinence- leaking with increase intra-abdominal pressure such as with running, jumping, coughing, sneezing
- Urge incontinence- leaking due to needing to rush to the bathroom
- Pelvic, rectal, vaginal pain
- Urgency- feeling like you aren’t going to make it to the bathroom
- Frequency- needing to use the bathroom an increase amount (going more than every 2 hours)
- Prenatal and post pregnancy diagnoses
- Dyspareunia- pain with intercourse
- Vaginismus- tightening of muscle with penetration
- Vulvodynia- pain at vaginal opening
- Interstitial cystitis/ bladder pain
- Endometriosis
- Fecal incontinence
- Constipation
- Pre and post prostatectomy
- Prostatitis
- Erectile dysfunction
- Coccydynia
- Testicular pain
- Pudendal nerve dysfunction
- Nocturia- increase urination at night
- Diastasis recti
- pre/ post pregnancy and any pain involving including pelvic pain and low back pain
Where we’re located
Oneida Health Pelvic Floor Therapy is an Outpatient service offered at 221 Broad StreetOneida, NY 13421. Parking is free and conveniently located. Handicap accessible.
Staff Includes:
Emily Gubbins PT, DPT
Pelvic Floor Therapist
Why Oneida Health?
Our mission is simple. To provide patients care focused on the highest level of safety and a satisfying experience. We are here to help patients create treatment plans built around them. Our highly experienced team will provide quality, state-of-the-art care for you across a full range of conditions with exceptional care.