Pelvic Pain Physical Therapy
Pelvic pain can affect exercise, intimacy, sitting, work, sleep, and everyday life—and finding answers can sometimes be frustrating.
Our pelvic health physical therapists work with women experiencing conditions including vulvodynia, vestibulodynia, vaginismus, dyspareunia (painful intercourse), pelvic floor muscle overactivity, bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis, tailbone pain, and persistent pelvic pain.
Treatment begins with understanding your individual symptoms and identifying the factors that may be contributing to them. Depending on your needs, treatment may include education, breathing and relaxation strategies, manual therapy, mobility work, pelvic floor retraining, strengthening, and gradual return to activities that have become painful or difficult.
Urinary Leakage, Urgency & Frequency
Do you leak when you cough, sneeze, laugh, run, jump, or exercise? Do you suddenly feel like you have to find a bathroom immediately? Are you planning your day around bathroom access?
These symptoms may be related to how your pelvic floor, core, bladder habits, breathing, and pressure management are working together.
Pelvic floor physical therapy can help women experiencing:
Stress urinary incontinence • Urge urinary incontinence • Urinary urgency • Urinary frequency • Overactive bladder symptoms • Difficulty emptying the bladder
Rather than simply telling you to “do Kegels,” we identify what your pelvic floor needs and build a treatment plan around your symptoms and goals.
Constipation & Bowel Dysfunction
Constipation isn't always just about diet.
Your pelvic floor muscles need to appropriately relax and coordinate during a bowel movement. When that coordination isn't happening effectively, you may experience straining, incomplete emptying, pain, or persistent constipation.
Pelvic floor physical therapy can help identify contributing factors and teach strategies for bowel mechanics, pelvic floor relaxation and coordination, breathing, positioning, mobility, and pressure management.
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy During Pregnancy
You don't have to wait until you're in pain—or until after delivery—to see a pelvic floor physical therapist.
Pregnancy creates significant changes in your pelvic floor, core, hips, spine, abdominal wall, and overall movement. Physical therapy can help you stay active and comfortable while preparing your body for labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery.
We commonly help with:
Back pain • Pelvic girdle pain • Pubic symphysis pain • SI joint pain • Pelvic pressure • Urinary leakage • Exercise modifications • Core and pelvic floor coordination
Birth Preparation & Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
Preparing for birth is about more than strengthening your pelvic floor.
Your pelvic floor also needs to relax, lengthen, and coordinate during delivery.
Our birth preparation sessions can help you better understand your pelvic floor and prepare your body for labor and delivery.
Depending on where you are in your pregnancy, we may discuss:
- Pelvic floor relaxation and coordination
- Breathing and pressure management
- Labor and delivery positions
- Mobility for labor
- Pushing mechanics
- Perineal preparation
- Partner strategies
- Preparing for postpartum recovery
Our goal is not to promise a particular birth experience. It is to help you enter labor feeling informed, prepared, and confident in your body.
Postpartum Physical Therapy & Return to Exercise
Your six-week postpartum visit doesn't mean your body has finished recovering.
Pregnancy and delivery place significant demands on the pelvic floor, abdominal wall, hips, back, and entire musculoskeletal system. Whether you had a vaginal delivery or C-section, pelvic floor physical therapy can help you understand your recovery and progressively rebuild strength.
We can help with:
Urinary leakage • Pelvic pressure or prolapse • Pelvic pain • Pain with intercourse • Diastasis recti • C-section scar discomfort • Perineal tearing • Core weakness • Back or hip pain • Return to running • Return to strength training
Our goal is to help you move beyond simply being “cleared” for exercise and feel genuinely ready and confident to return to it.
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy During Perimenopause & Menopause
Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause can coincide with changes in pelvic and sexual health.
Women may begin experiencing new or worsening urinary urgency, leakage, pelvic pressure, vaginal or vulvar discomfort, pain with intercourse, constipation, or difficulty maintaining their previous activity level.
Pelvic floor physical therapy can be one part of a broader healthcare approach to these symptoms. We work with you to address the musculoskeletal and pelvic floor components of your concerns while collaborating with your gynecologist, urogynecologist, oncologist, or other healthcare providers when appropriate.
Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation During & After Pelvic Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatment can affect pelvic floor function in ways patients may not be prepared for.
We work with women during and after treatment for gynecologic and pelvic cancers, including ovarian, cervical, uterine/endometrial, vulvar, vaginal, colorectal, and other cancers affecting pelvic function.
Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and medically induced menopause may contribute to:
- Pelvic pain
- Scar and tissue restrictions
- Pain with intercourse
- Vaginal or pelvic floor changes
- Bladder or bowel dysfunction
- Weakness and deconditioning
- Lymphedema
- Difficulty returning to exercise
- Changes in sexual health
At Athena, our pelvic health and oncology expertise allows us to look at these concerns together rather than treating them as completely separate problems.
