Welcome to Pelvic Balance Physical Therapy! 

PAIN NEUROSCIENCE EDUCATION

Pain education is one of the most important aspects to recovery. Knowledge is power and gives you control over your pain. Pelvic Balance PT will provide insightful but easy to understand education about how your body works. Once you understand this - you will gain the knowledge to understad your pain and therefore control it so you can calm it long term. This is how ALL chronic pain should be treated as the research and clinical results show profound results utilizing this alongside with manual treatment. 

MYOFASCIAL RELEASE

This is a hands-on massage-type treatment that is utilized to mobilize connective tissues in the body and ultimately calm the nervous system. The body likes to have mobility and freedom of movement. When myofascial tissue becomes stiff and rigid from trauma, scar tissue, hormone changes, surgeries, and/or inflammation it can make the nervous system hypersensitive. Mobilizing the myofascial tissues allows the body to have freedom of movement which is vital for the pelvic region to function properly. The bladder, uterus, intestines, rectum, and vagina all need to have movement to do their job appropriately and when myofascial tissue is restricted it can cause significant problems, hypersensitive nerves, increased danger messages, and therefore pain. Pelvic Balance PT will also educate you on several ways you can perform this on yourself with simple treatment tools.

PELVIC FLOOR EMG BIOFEEDBACK 

Software (Telesis) that attaches externally near the pelvic floor muscles to allow women and men to see what their pelvic floor muscles are doing on a screen. You will be able to see if your muscles are relaxed or overactive and if you are able to perform a proper pelvic contraction (kegel) and relaxation. Pelvic Balance PT uses this equipment to help you perform a pelvic floor muscle contraction and relaxation (Kegels) with proper core and breath coordination. This helps with vaginal/rectal pain, stress reduction & over activation of pelvic floor muscles, body awareness, urine & fecal leakage, pelvic organ prolapse, preparing for pregnancy, during pregnancy, & postpartum recovery.

STRESS REDUCTION EDUCATION

The nervous system is amazing beautiful and complex all at the same time. The nervous system is broken into several different categories. There is the central (brain and spinal cord) and peripheral nervous system (nerves coming from the brain and spinal cord that go to the rest of the body). The peripheral nervous system is further broken into the somatic (voluntary system we have control over) and the autonomic system (an involuntary system we don't have as much control over). This autonomic system is further broken into the sympathetic (fight or flight state) and the parasympathetic (calm state). When the sympathetic system is not balanced with the calm parasympathetic system the body will start to show physical symptoms of all kinds and often the way these symptoms are presented will dictate the diagnosis that people are given. The goal of stress reduction is to decrease the over activation of the sympathetic system and boast the parasympathetic system to allow the body to balance and heal itself (the body is far smarter than modern medicine with its ability to heal). Pelvic Balance PT will help to educate you about the nervous system and how to use specific strategies to reduce stress on a day to day basis and allow the body to heal. This is where the true magic of healing happens.

SEX COUNSELING

Dr. Molly Hart has partnered with Dr. Katie Shubert (sex psychologist) to create Sex On The Floor Podcast to help increase education even further (check it out!).

Dr. Molly Hart and Dr. Jordan Schmidt have completed Pelvic Guru Academy's: Pelvic Health Sexuality Counseling Certificate Program taught by Dr. Uchenna Ossai, PT, DPT, CSC and Heather Edwards, PT, CSC. This course aids in our sex counseling education that is rooted in intersectionality and inclusive understanding of positive sexual health.

You will learn about possible root causes for emotional and physical pain during intimacy and how to then address the root cause to decrease the pain. Pelvic Balance PT will help you understand why libido may be lower and how past experiences and current environments play a massive role in your painful/discomfort with sexual experiences. Graded exposure to intimacy with a partner or yourself will be introduced to allow for a slow but appropriate recovery. We will teach you how to perform your own treatments or with a trusted partner to allow for a quicker, more cost effective recovery that you are in control of!

PEE EDUCATION

Learn about typical bathroom habits, how often you should be going pee during the day, how much water to intake, and how to conservatively decrease and control chronic UTI’s and yeast infections. Pelvic Balance PT will teach you how to control the urge to urinate often and help get you on pee schedule that is normal to keep you out of the bathroom and anxiously searching for bathrooms constantly. Education about the food, drinks, and environmental triggers that cause urine urgency and how to reduce these triggers. Education to correct peeing often before bed and maybe often during the night. Education about a proper pelvic floor exercise program (Kegels) to strengthen your muscles and keep the pee in when you couch, laugh, sneeze, or exercise no matter how high your fitness level is (stress urinary incontinence).

POOP EDUCATION

Our bowel habits are so important. Often people will struggle with loose stools, constipation, or difficulty having a bowel movement and have to strain a lot. Pelvic Balance PT will review simple changes in your diet to address the poor bowel quality (our poop should have a nice smooth snake-like consistency and if it does not that is an indicator that the gut health is off). It is important to get off of fiber supplements and address these concerns with diet and fluid intake, as fiber does not address the full problem. Some have difficulty having a bowel movement and strain excessively when trying to eliminate. This can cause downstream problems, especially for women with prolapse symptoms. We will educate you about how to position for a bowel movement and how to use breath techniques to make pooping easy, enjoyable, and stop you from straining.

EXERCISE EDUCATION

Learn about the exercises required to treat your individual pain and health concerns, how to properly perform all exercises, and how to properly PACE a program WITHOUT flaring pain. Pelvic Balance PT will help you with commitment and accountability to perform an exercise program as well, as this tends to be the largest barrier for recovery. We use wonderful and easy to use apps that allow for easy access to your programs and tracking progress.

DIET EDUCATION

Diet is immensely important for inflammation reduction and providing the body with the nutrients it needs to heal itself and mitochondria (energy producers of the cells). Inflammation and lack of nutrients significantly contribute to pain, depression, fatigue, and decreased mental clarity. Pelvic Balance PT will dive deep into your diet and fluid intake to help you SLOWLY make ideal changes in your diet. This is helpful for all autoimmune conditions, pain, weight loss, and preventative care.

SLEEP EDUCATION

Sleep is vital for recovery from chronic pain...but unfortunately with chronic pain most people have poor sleep quality. It has been found that if you take a healthy individual and sleep deprive them you can induce chronic pain into them...that is how important sleep is to our recovery. Pelvic Balance PT will review effective techniques that help you conservatively improve your sleep quality without medications.

GOAL SETTING

One of the key steps to recovery from chronic pain is setting weekly and monthly goals. Pelvic Balance PT will help you determine very realistic and simple goals each week to target, which will allow you to heal yourself. Pelvic Balance PT's will be your accountability coach through this process and help guide you the whole time you are working together inside and outside of the clinic space. Without having a purpose each day and goals to hit we tend to not be focused on our recovery...and without dedicated focus, I have found it is very difficult to heal.