In our world today, pain during pregnancy is all too common, postpartum care is physically and emotionally inadequate, leaking urine after baby is considered normal, and there is an enormous societal expectation for a mother's body to get back to pre-baby shape. In response to asking about pain with sex, women are told "well if sex hurts, just drink a glass of wine and try to relax".
These powerful misconceptions are not only false and misleading, but also harmful to a woman's emotional and physical well-being. When told these issues are normal and "you just have to live with it", women stop seeking care, worsening many issues that pelvic health physical therapy may quickly address. In fact, pelvic floor physical therapy can improve many different conditions women experience every day such as low back pain, groin pain, hip pain, tailbone pain, constipation, leakage with sneezing or jumping, constant urge to urinate, pain with gynecological exams, and pain with sex.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of knowledge in the general medical community regarding pelvic pain and other women's issues. In fact, a person experiencing pelvic pain sees an average of 8-10 doctors before finding a way to manage their pain. Many issues that women experience are still brushed off as a psychological issue or an exaggeration of symptoms, a common story I hear from women with endometriosis. This leads to distrust of the medical system, a dependence on strong pain medications, and feelings of hopelessness.
Pelvis Wellness is an evidence-based, individualized pelvic health physical therapy program that gets to the root cause of neuromusculoskeletal sources of pain in the pelvis, groin, low back, tailbone, legs, and even upper back, neck, and jaw. Issues such as constipation, incontinence (involuntary loss of urine), bladder urgency, bladder frequency, pelvic organ prolapse, painful intercourse, vaginismus, and painful bladder syndrome are treated holistically with physical therapy interventions such as internal and external muscle and nerve releases, dry needling, scar mobilization, therapeutic exercises, neuromuscular re-education, postural enhancement, and modalities such as biofeedback and internal vaginal/rectal electric stimulation.
As a young, female physical therapist who got into the field due to a hamstring injury, I quickly realized that physical therapy could help so many more conditions than just the basic post surgical case or basic musculoskeletal injury. I realized that an entire part of the body (with muscles!) was being completely ignored by healthcare providers, just because that region is private and could be considered too personal to address. In reality, without pelvic floor treatment, 80% of back pain cases may never fully resolve. Most physical therapy caseloads are 90% low back pain. I knew I needed to ask the personal questions and have the skills to perform pelvic floor therapy to help my patients fully get to the root cause of their symptoms.
So I decided to focus my continuing education on women's health and specialized treatment of the pelvic floor. I have had a lot of success integrating my pelvic floor knowledge & treatment into my general orthopedic practice (most helpful for low back pain, SI joint pain, hip pain, and hip labral issues) along with treatment of specific women's health diagnoses such as endometriosis, vaginismus, painful bladder syndrome, pregnancy, postpartum, and other issues that reduce quality of life. Due to current events of COVID-19, I decided to start my own practice, uninhibited by current health concerns of going to a large clinic, insurance regulations and restrictions, and lack of patient time from an overbooked schedule. This model allows me to give you the highest quality of treatment: 1 on 1 with no distractions, therefore, increasing your progress and decreasing the amount of time and money you need to spend on physical therapy as a whole. I operate in the comfort of your own home (mask on, of course!) or behind a computer screen for telehealth sessions where I can teach you self-assessment, self treatment, guided exercises and education.
I am a licensed physical therapist in West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, DC, and South Carolina, and can treat in any of those regions (in-person appointments available for WV, MD, VA, and telehealth available in all the above states). I am passionate about helping women anywhere along their journey. Email me at chelsea@pelviswellnessphysicaltherapy.com to get started!