FAQs

The treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction is a specialty within physical therapy and/or occupational therapy, involving the evaluation and treatment of problems that are often related to the pelvis, specifically the pelvic floor muscles that form a sort of bowl in the bottom of your pelvis.

When your pelvic floor has weakness or an imbalance due to normal events like pregnancy and childbirth or as a result of an underlying condition such as endometriosis, it can lead to pelvic or low back pain, urinary problems like incontinence or difficulty voiding, bowel problems like constipation and bowel leakage, and sexual problems like pain or discomfort with sex.

Unfortunately, many general practitioners not specializing in pelvic floor therapy often can’t see the whole picture and will tell patients to simply “eat more fiber”, or “have a glass of wine before sex”. At Form and Function Pelvic Health, Women’s Health PT and OT is all we do! Because of this, we take getting to the root of pelvic dysfunction very seriously, because we know how intimately it can affect someone’s day-to-day life, as well as their body image and close relationships.

Our therapy sessions begin with a comprehensive evaluation that not only allows us to understand your story and the specific problems that you’ve been dealing with, but also get to the heart of how these symptoms have been affecting your life. This evaluation includes walking you through a detailed pelvic health questionnaire to allow you the time and prompting questions to really flesh out the details of your symptoms. We then delve into some of the behavioral components that may be contributing to your discomfort or symptoms, such as your habits which can affect bladder and bowel health.

Your initial evaluation also includes a physical assessment which allows us to assess your posture, check for diastasis recti, and evaluate your ability to effectively engage your deep core muscles, among other things. We’ll then perform an internal pelvic floor muscle assessment if warranted, assessing the strength and coordination of your pelvic floor collectively, as well as discerning if you have pain in individual muscles within your pelvis.

From here, we establish a treatment program that can include a combination of education for behavioral changes, skilled manual therapy, and exercises to help you strengthen the areas specific to your needs.

Together, we can help you stop leaking, overcome pelvic pain or painful sex, restore confidence in your body after birth, and get you back to exercising and doing the things that you love!

Whatever you would like! Dress comfortably, but nothing special is required.

This really varies so much for each patient! You provider will discuss this in detail with you at your initial evaluation, once they have a chance to discuss your symptoms and evaluate you.

We are happy to work with out-of-town patients. We have worked with patients around the country and internationally to provide consultation and treatment for their pelvic health complaints.

There are many educational and behavioral components to pelvic health, and using a virtual platform can be a great start to teaching patients to listen to their bodies and realize the areas of weakness and dysfunction that may be affecting their health. Using behavioral modifications and education regarding ergonomics, nutrition and relaxation/breathing techniques, as well as beginning a personalized home exercise program, we are often able to improve pelvic dysfunction over a remote platform.

That being said, in-person evaluation and treatment offers the highest quality effective therapy treatment, allowing the use of skilled manual therapy as well as hands-on assessment of musculoskeletal dysfunction, especially of the pelvic floor muscles. 

Painful intercourse, also called dyspareunia, is pain with vaginal penetration, and it is far more common after childbirth than most moms realize. One study found that 23% of women, more than 1 in 5, still experienced pain at 18 months postpartum. C-section moms are actually more likely to report intense pain with intercourse at 6 months postpartum compared to moms who delivered vaginally. Common contributors include tight or tender pelvic floor muscles, hormonal changes that thin the vaginal tissues and reduce lubrication, and scarring from perineal stitching or a C-section. At Form and Function Pelvic Health in Pittsburgh, we help moms understand what is driving the pain and treat the root cause.

Symptoms can show up in a lot of different ways. The most common ones we see in our Pittsburgh practice include pain or discomfort at the perineum, pain with shallow or deep vaginal penetration, pain during speculum exams at the OB, throbbing pain after intercourse, lower abdominal discomfort afterward, and difficulty or pain inserting tampons. Any one of these is a sign your pelvic floor needs some attention, and the good news is these symptoms respond really well to treatment.

Treatment at Form and Function Pelvic Health is personalized to what is actually causing your pain. Care often includes pelvic floor muscle neuro re-education, which slowly teaches your muscles to tolerate penetration again (sometimes with a dilator or pelvic wand), behavioral guidance around lubricants, vaginal moisturizers, and external tools like the Ohnut to reduce depth as needed, and relaxation training for the pelvic floor along with the supporting muscles and breath. We also use hands-on manual therapy, including trigger point release of the internal pelvic floor muscles and fascia release of the abdominals, back, and external pelvic area, plus a home exercise program built specifically for you.

This catches a lot of Pittsburgh moms off guard. Even without a vaginal delivery, your pelvic floor carried the load of pregnancy for nine months, and your C-section scar can pull on surrounding tissues in ways that affect pelvic floor function and sensation. Research actually shows C-section moms are more likely to experience intense pain with intercourse at 6 months postpartum than moms who delivered vaginally. Scar tissue mobilization, manual therapy, and pelvic floor retraining can make a big difference. You did not avoid the need for recovery just because you did not deliver vaginally.

Getting started is easy, and you are in good hands. First, book a free 30-minute in-person discovery session so you can meet your therapist, talk through what you have been experiencing, and see if we are a good fit. From there, you will schedule a full 60-minute PT evaluation and begin a personalized plan to help you feel like yourself again. This is one of the most common things we treat, so there is no need to feel embarrassed or unsure. We are here to help.