Today I finished my second round of physical therapy! :::throws confetti:::
I have been back in physical therapy for about ten weeks and we’ve mainly been focusing on pelvic floor physical therapy. I had great success after the first round but the surgery this summer did a number on my core muscles and we needed to do some retraining (funny how a foot-long incision can do that – ha!).
The first time around we spend a lot of time on training the muscles how to relax as many times with chronic pelvic pain, your muscles become trained to stay guarded and locked down. As your body experiences pain, the body can lock down the muscles in efforts to protect itself which in turn can create more pain which causes the body to become even more guarded and the vicious cycle continues. So one of the goals of the therapy is to retrain these muscles to relax. My therapy for this area included deep muscle work and a lot of stretching. My TigerTail was a very helpful tool in working out some of the kinks and knots!
The second part of my therapy was focused on the pelvic floor muscles themselves and learning how to control and strengthen these muscles. The therapy itself is very personal as much of it is done internally which can be very intimidating and unnerving. I was petrified and I think what put me at ease the most was knowing that I was seeing a therapist who works specifically with pelvic floor patients and came very highly recommended. She was amazing and really put me at ease. We did some trigger point therapy like we did the first round but we also focused on strengthening the muscles using Kegel exercises and made a lot of progress!
Will I say that physical therapy cured my pelvic pain? No as I still struggle with chronic pelvic pain in general from the endometriosis, scar tissue, and fibromyalgia but I can tell a difference in how my body feels and responds. I do not feel like I am running to the bathroom at all hours of the day and intimacy no longer requires an ice pack so I am a very big advocate of including pelvic floor physical therapy as a treatment option for those struggling with endometriosis and other chronic pelvic pain issues.