You Don’t Have to Live with Pelvic Pain!
Written By Lindsey Tasker Cole
Physiotherapist, Pelvic Health Therapist | July 17 2023
One in five adults are living with chronic pelvic pain. As a pelvic health therapist, that statistic pains me. Because no matter how severe that pelvic pain is, there are natural ways we can alleviate it - or even relieve it altogether.
Not only is chronic pain, well, painful, it also comes with a host of side effects. Many women who suffer from pelvic pain find that it interferes with their ability to control their own bodily functions, it can make exercise challenging, and it can make sexual intercourse uncomfortable (and, sometimes, almost impossible.)
No one wants to live that way and the good news is that you don’t have to. I have dedicated my career to helping women with anything that impacts their pelvic health. With appropriate treatment through physiotherapy, you might be able to put pelvic pain in your rearview mirror for good.
There are many potential causes of pelvic pain. It may be a solitary condition on its own or it may be a symptom of a larger health issue. Some of the more common causes include conditions like endometriosis, bladder pain syndrome (interstitial cystitis), IBS, fibroids, and more. Pelvic pain can be the result of musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, gynecological, or even psychological causes.
Symptoms of pelvic pain can be equally varied and unique to the person who is experiencing them. If you’ve been living with it for a while and trying to ‘power through it,’ you may not even be able to isolate that pain. Some of the more common symptoms that women report are constant or intermittent discomfort, painful intercourse, a feeling of pressure or heaviness in the pelvic region, irritation before or after urination or bowel movements, or an unusual frequency or urgency to urinate.
You might be experiencing one or several of those symptoms and it is not even an exhaustive list. The vast number of possible causes and potential symptoms explains why there is no one-size-fits-all treatment and why an individualized care plan is essential.
Individualized care is what we do here. During your first visit, we’ll take the time to learn all about your medical history, the symptoms you are experiencing, the impact on your well-being, and your goal for treatment. Then we’ll move on to a physical assessment of your posture, alignment, strength, flexibility, etc.
We’ll pull together everything we know about you - and everything we know about physiotherapy and pelvic floor health - to come up with a treatment plan that will achieve your goals. That will look different for each client, but may include releasing muscles that are tense and overworked, tightening up muscles that are too loose, stretching, realigning, breath work, and take-home exercises that you can continue on your own to reach your goals sooner.
The bottom line is that pelvic floor health is so important and it can impact just about every part of your life. If you’re experiencing chronic pelvic floor pain, I want to help you. Don’t live with it any longer - come see us instead.
As an added bonus, there are no wrong doors here in our circle of care. If our assessment determines that your needs are better met by another specialty practiced by a colleague on our team, we won’t hesitate to make sure you get the right treatment for your specific needs.
We put you at the center of your own healthcare, and that is why this place is so special to me, my teammates, and countless women who come to us to be seen, to be heard, and to find freedom from chronic pain.
Lindsey Tasker Cole
MPT BSc.Kin