If you’ve got problems with your bladder or bowel or pain in your pelvic area (including lower back pain), a pelvic physiotherapist can assess whether these are related to the muscles and nerves in this region and give you practical ways to improve your function and your life. You can see a pelvic physiotherapist without a referral from your GP, however it’s great to discuss these issues with your GP if you are attending an appointment with them.
Pelvic physiotherapists help with:
Bladder
- Leakage – during life or during sport
- Urgency – rushing to the toilet
- Urge urinary incontinence – leaking on the way to the toilet
- Stress urinary incontinence – leaking urine when you cough, sneeze, laugh, or lift things
- Nocturia – getting up to urinate more than once a night
- Frequency – going many times a day
- Difficulty emptying your bladder
- Overactive bladder
Bowel
- Bowel urgency – having to rush to the toilet or being afraid you won’t make it
- Incontinence –leaking from your bowel in small or large amounts
- Chronic constipation
- Difficulty emptying your bowel
- Irritable bowel
- Bloating/gas and abdominal discomfort
- Difficulty controlling wind
- Frequency – going many times a day
Pain
- Painful periods (dysmenorrhoea), endometriosis
- Sexual pain – pain with sex, vaginismus, vulvodynia, clitoral pain, sexual difficulty after cancer and pudendal neuralgia
- Pain when having medical examinations
- Coccyx or tailbone pain-coccydynia, Pelvic Girdle Pain-sacroiliac joint (SIJ) and Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction (SPD)
- Bladder or bowel - pain with holding on, emptying or gassy pain/bloating
- General pelvic pain without a clear cause.
Perimenopause and menopause
- Symptom management and knowledge about changes to your body in this period
- Vaginal dryness and tissue changes
Pregnancy and post-partum care
- Care before and during pregnancy to deal with any pelvic issues that come up, prepare for birth (including effective interventions such as using a TENS machine), appropriate exercises and care for the pelvic floor
- Post-birth – return to exercise, breast-feeding, bladder or bowel health and pelvic floor exercises
- Pelvic organ prolapse – heaviness or dragging pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis – a pelvic physio who specialises in this can even fit you with a pessary, which may provide the required support without surgery.
