Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy (or Pelvic PT) is a specialized type of physical therapy that treats bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction through the musculoskeletal and neuromuscular system.
Whoa. Basically, what that means is that there is a bowl of muscles between your hips, holding up your organs: your bladder, rectum and uterus, if you have one.
Lots of things can go wrong with those muscles and the nerves that feed them, and when the muscles and nerves aren’t happy, everything else can go a bit haywire, too. Muscles can be too tight, too weak, in spasm, full of scar tissue — all things that make it hard for them to do their job properly. For example, 1 in 3 new moms report bowel and bladder issues after giving birth, and about half of all new moms have pelvic pain in the months after they’ve delivered. These problems don’t just go away on their own, and many just suffer in silence, assuming this is “the new normal.” Others take medication and get surgery to “fix” the problem. Instead of all that, we pelvic floor physical therapists use our hands to work on the muscles, tissues and nerves that need it, empowering you to heal yourself as we use our clinical expertise and work together with your body to resolve those “down there” problems.