Have You Drank Enough Water Today?
66% of your body is water, so replenish yourself with the best: pure natural water. If you feel thirsty, you are all ready dehydrated – drink water regularly and your body will thank you!
Using My Heritage to Teach About the Importance of Functional Squatting
My family is originally from Gujarat, India. My parents migrated to the US in 1972. Me and my four older brothers were very young when we moved here to the US. I was only 2 years old. When I was in middle school my father decided to take me and one of my brothers to India to visit my grandmother. This was my first time ever traveling to our home country. I spent all summer there with my grandmother who was widowed. She lived in a very small village with a very small home. We had very little running water. Most of our water came from a well, which I remember having to go get for her in big barrels. No central air and an outhouse with no westernized toilet seat.
My most memorable memory of this trip was when my father took me to the toilet at the airport. When I walked in, I looked for the toilet seats and everything looked very different. I was very scared and then a women next to me kindly showed me the toilets. She took my hand and showed me the holes in the ground that had a water basin next to them. She showed me how to squat down to use the bathroom and use the water to wash. I was so embarrassed and but did what she showed me. That summer I learned so much. Squatting was something that was normal for every function of daily life. Not only did we have to squat to use the bathroom, we had to squat to bathe our bodies, squat to help wash our clothes in the creek, squat to cook, and squat and bow down to pray. I learned such a great deal about life during that summer and many more summers that I had the privilege to go visit my grandmother.
It is amazing to me how God has brought me full circle. I use those things I learned that summer and my past experiences as a pelvic floor therapists today on a daily basis. Functional squatting and the importance of keeping our neutral spine for ADLs is a crucial part of my teaching. I reflect back to my days in India as I try to educate my patients on squatting and pelvic floor training and am so thankful that I have my past to be able to do this with.
Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
The pelvic floor consists of several layers of muscles that cover the bottom of the pelvic cavity. These muscles have 3 distinct roles:
1) To support the pelvic organs, the bladder, uterus and colon within the pelvis
2) To assist in stopping and starting the flow of urine or passage of gas or stool
3) To aid in sexual appreciation.
When performing a proper contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, you should feel a sensation of pulling up and in. A functional stop test can be done to know if you are contracting the right muscles. This is done by trying to stop the flow of urine during flow. Attempt to completely stop the flow of urine by contracting these muscles. You should not hold your breath or contract the abdominals or other hip and leg musculature while contracting the pelvic floor. Take note of whether you can completely stop the flow of urine stream.
What can make the pelvic floor muscles weak:
*Childbirth
*Constipation
*Sustained coughing or sneezing
*Heavy incorrect lifting
*Obesity
*Hormones associated with menopause
Types of Dysfunction:
* Stress or Urge Urinary Incontinence
* Constipation or Bowel leakage
* Prolapse
* Painful intercourse or penetration
* Pelvic Pain
* Coccydynia
Pelvic floor therapy can help to provide conservative treatment options for both men and women who are experiencing any type of pelvic floor dysfunction and laxity. Appropriate exercise, muscle awareness, electrical stimulation, biofeedback and massage can reduce the symptoms that may occur with pelvic floor dysfunction.
For more information please contact His Therapy at 864-534-1780 or email at sabina@histherapy.net
What Does a PT Do for Urinary Incontinence
As many of you may know that a physical therapists can help people to exercises with weights to help with strengthening or they can teach someone how to use crutches after surgery to help them walk. But how can physical therapists help with bladder or bowel problems like incontinence?
The pelvic floor muscle is a skeletal muscle just like other muscles in our body and they respond to
the same training techniques. Some physical therapists have developed special skills in
training the pelvic floor muscles. These therapists are called pelvic floor therapists.
If someone wants to strengthen their biceps arm muscle they have to learn the correct
exercises. Then they perform the exercises with the correct difficulty (not too hard, not too
easy) for the correct duration of time (it takes 4 to 6 months to increase the size of a
muscle). Pelvic floor muscle training is the same. First you have to learn the correct
exercise. This is challenging as it is an inside muscle and sometimes hard to find. In
fact, 40% of people are doing the exercise wrong. The best way to tell if you are doing
the exercise correctly is by palpating inside the vagina or rectum. A trained physical
therapist can measure the muscle by palpating just inside the vagina or rectum and asking
you to squeeze. This usually not painful but gives a lot of information about the muscle
How big is the muscle?
Can you feel the muscle?
Is the muscle painful and tense? – it is very important to relax and this may be the primary reason exercises do not work.
Can the muscle elevate and support the organs – especially important when the organs are sagging?
Can the muscle squeeze tight – to stop urine leakage?
Can you hold the contract – long enough to get to the bathroom?
Does the belly muscle work with (or against) the pelvic muscle?
Does the breathing work with the pelvic floor muscle?
All these things are helpful in developing the correct exercise program. In many cases
the exercises are difficult to learn and additional information is needed. EMG
biofeedback can help. This device allows you to see the muscle contraction just like the
EKG allows you to see the heart contraction. To monitor the pelvic floor muscle a sensor
is placed inside the rectum / vagina or stuck to the outside of the rectum. If the
contraction is strong the line goes up (and stays up). If the contraction is weak the line
does not go up very high and fall quickly. Seeing this can help you to activate the correct
muscles and keep them activated increasing the effect of the exercises.
A proper exercise program includes the answers these questions:
How long to hold the contraction?
How long to rest between? – rest is as important as hold
How many to do at a time and how many times to do them in a day? – studies tell us that you must do more than 45 per day to get results
What position should the exercises be done in?
How do you breathe during the exercises?
If you want more information about this or any of our services please call us at 864-534-1780.
Pelvic Floor Therapy and Prostate Cancer
Men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer or have other medical problems related to their prostate may have some symptoms that a pelvic floor therapists can help them with. Many men suffer from urinary incontinence, urgency and retention issues and many more things that affect their way of life and every day function. Both pre and post therapy is very beneficial to these patients. Treatment may include:
1) Education on the anatomy of the pelvic floor and physiology of micturition process
2) Bladder retraining including assisting patients with proper bladder voiding schedules and avoiding bladder irritants
3) Education on proper posture and body mechanics
4) Manual cueing and biofeedback training on proper pelvic floor contractions
5) Biofeedback for pelvic floor training
6) Core stabilization exercises
Outcomes are fantastic! Patients gain the control they need of their bladder. Many men decrease the amount of pads they have to use secondary to leakage, wake up less at night to void, have less urgency and overall feel better with a more active daily lifestyle!
Please call His Therapy for more information. 864-534-1780 or visit our website for more information www.histherapy.net
Have You Had Enough Water Today?
Everyday, I am convinced more and more that the average American, including our children women and men, do not drink enough water! It affects every part of your life. Your bowel function, bladder function, skin, eyes, brain, heart, nails, joints, muscles, etc. The list can keep going on. Every part of your body needs water. There is no doubt about it. YOU WILL FEEL BETTER! I recommend it at lease 80 oz to 100 oz especially on these hot summer days. So please, do not forget to drink your water today!
Give us a call if you have further questions or visit our His Therapy facebook page. We would love to hear your thoughts on this!
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Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”
Preventing and Treating Stress Incontinence
Stress incontinence is a condition, usually in women, in which you involuntarily urinate when pressure in the abdomen increases suddenly, as in coughing or jumping. This tends to happen because the pelvic floor muscles have been weakened or damaged, causing the bladder to leak. The two biggest causes of stress incontinence are menopause and damage to the pudendal nerve. After menopause, women lose the added protection from estrogen that acts on the perineum by fluffing up the tissue. Additionally, in younger patients with leakage, it could be a bladder infection or excessive exercise causing the leakage. To help prevent stress incontinence, healthcare professionals recommend these three basic things, avoid constipation, be careful lifting heavy objects, and exercise with care. All of these small changes can make a big difference for your pelvic muscles and bladder leakage if you take the time to recognize them. Unfortunately, for many women while this is going on they think, “Oh, this is normal,” or are too embarrassed to say anything to their doctor, but this is no problem to push to the side. If the problem is more severe or has been going on longer, there are other treatments such as exercises, biofeedback, and electrical stimulation. All of these treatments help women learn to control their pelvic muscles and prevent stress incontinence.