Pelvic Pain – When To Get Help!

Ladies, we are not the best when it comes to getting help for our bodies. Many women wait until the symptoms are so far advanced that multiple systems are involved. Which means that treatment takes longer and is more expensive than we would like.

Today we are going to cover the common symptoms that bring women into my clinic. I have listed them in order of what finally brings women in the door. So, read until the end because the last one will probably surprise you!

1. Pain With Insertion

Pain with insertion may happen during intercourse or when inserting a tampon. In my experience, pain that happens when inserting a tampon causes people to change their habits and use another form of treatment such as pads.

While pain with sexual activity is what will bring women into my clinic to get help. You may be able to find different positions to decrease or even eliminate the pain. But, when pain is keeping you from being intimate all together help is needed.

Finding the cause of the pain symptoms is the first step to overcoming this problem and returning to your regularly scheduled activities. Bonus, many women find an increase in their libido after addressing pelvic floor dysfunction.

2. Feeling of Heaviness

Many women who are experiencing pelvic pain describe a sensation as if there is a melon resting on their pelvic floor. This sense of pressure causes them to feel heavy as if they are moving through Jello. Movement feels difficult and burdensome to the point where they have difficulty getting motivated to exercise.

This feeling of heaviness may also include a prolapse where women feel a bulge in their pelvic floor when they are washing down there. Suddenly feeling a bulge when you are in the shower is extremely concerning and can set off a cascade of anxiety and fear about what happened.

If you are suffering with a sensation of heaviness or have felt a bulge in your pelvic floor while showering then I encourage you to seek help from a Specialist. They can help you to understand what is going on and get you on a path of healing. And, a Specialist will be able to help put that fear and anxiety to rest.

3. Urinary Incontinence

Losing urine when you laugh, cough, or sneeze is the third most common reason that women come into our clinic. I believe this is because so many women have accepted this fact as a “normal” part of the aging process or assume that it “just happens” after you have children.

In today’s medical environment, many doctors are realizing that this is not a “normal” fact after having children and referring women for Specialist help with their urinary incontinence. Which is amazing!

But, many women who are older did not get this type of help after giving birth. And, now they are aging and having increased problems like frequent stress or urge incontinence. They are struggling to make it to the bathroom on time because their symptoms have progressed over the years.

Urinary incontinence with laughing, coughing, or sneezing may not seem like a big deal in the beginning but it can progress over time as our bodies change. This may lead to some serious consequences that are harder to manage as we age.

4. Fecal Incontinence

A lack of fecal control can lead to a very messy situation. Your symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction may have progressed to the point of losing control of your feces. Which can lead to an embarassing situation as you are tethered to the bathroom for fear of losing control of your bowels.

Many women who are suffering from fecal incontinence are afraid to travel and even schedule their daily routines around their bowel movements. But, you don’t have to be stuck close to the bathroom for the rest of your life. Fecal incontinence ad full pelvic floor control is available to you when you seek help from a Specialist.

5. Constipation

The opposite of fecal incontinence, constipation can also be a sign of pelvic floor dysfunction. You may have been suffering with constipation for years trying to change your diet, increase your fiber, or increase your water intake (which are all good things!). However, your constipation has not changed.

This may be due to a pelvic floor dysfunction where your pelvic floor is tight and makes evacuation difficult.

Which means that the feces gets stuck in the colon because it can’t get out through the pelvic floor. This causes you poop to get hard leading to constipation and more difficulty with voiding.

If you try to do exercises to improve the “strength” of your pelvic floor the symptoms actually get worse. Your constipation gets worse because the pelvic floor gets even tighter. You need help from a Specialist who can help you decrease the tone in your pelvic floor and allow your body to void without difficulty.

6. Hip or Low Back Pain

This is the symptom that many women do not know about when it comes to pelvic floor dysfunction. That it can actually be what is causing your hip or low back pain.

The pelvic floor is the sling that sits at the bottom of the abdominal cavity. It is literally connected to the deep hip muscles which means dysfunction in the hips can lead to dysfunction in the pelvic floor muscles.

Also, the pelvic floor forms the bottom of the triangle that we call the core muscles. You have your abdominals in the front, low back muscles in the back, and the pelvic floor muscles at the bottom. If one of these groups is in pain or not working correctly, it puts increased stress on the other muscles. Which means that pelvic pain can actually present as low back pain in the clinic.

This is why it’s important to work with a Specialist who is able to figure out the root of your pelvic pain, urinary incontinence, hip pain, or low back pain. You see, it’s all connected. And you deserve to work with a Specialist who understands the connections and can meet the needs of your body. Every body is different. Every body tells a different story. Every body has a different pattern.

If you are ready to meet with one of our Specialists to discuss not only your symptoms but the journey your body has been on then we encourage you to reach out for one of our Free Discovery Visits. During this visit, we will hear your story and determine if we are the best fit for your body, your needs, and your goals.

We often get asked if this Free Discovery Visit is a sales pitch and every body gets recommended to move forward with us. And, if you have made it this far, then I would like to address that. Our initial phone call is extensive because we don’t want to waste your time with a Free Discovery Visit if that’s not your next best step. However, sometimes people do make it into the clinic for the free visit and we determine that there is another step that is better for them. In fact, it literally just happened.

Dr. Amy was performing a Discovery Visit and found that the patient in front of her had done really well with a specific form of therapy that we do not offer but is offered at another clinic in town. Well, why reinvent the wheel when there is a proven strategy for this body? Dr. Amy sent her off to see the other providers to receive the treatment that had benefited her previously.

We can guarantee that we will not offer you the chance to move forward unless we believe we are the very best people to help you reach your goals. What do you have to lose by talking more about what is going on with your body?