Endometriosis & Pelvic Floor PT: Do Not Lay There And Suffer!
Endometriosis can be debilitating for some women. Every month women miss work, skip the gym, and decline social events affecting their mental health. If you have endometriosis, you know exactly how this can hold you back and keep you locked inside your house. Keep reading to learn more about endometriosis and the role of pelvic floor physical therapy.
Why does endometriosis hurt so bad?
Endometriosis is when there is tissue growth outside of the uterus that attaches to surrounding structures causing adhesions. These adhesions pull on surrounding structures which is painful. Then, the surrounding structures themselves including the pelvic floor muscles, bladder, and rectum can become irritated causing even more pain.
How to Manage Endometriosis
Endometriosis can be medically managed by excision removal of endometrial tissue, hormone regulation, and even hysterectomy in some cases. But even with a hysterectomy people can still have symptoms as there may be endometrial tissue left in the body.
Outside of medical management, symptoms of endometriosis can be mitigated by diet, exercise, and pelvic floor physical therapy. Let’s take a look at how these three aspects can be managed!
Diet: growth of the endometrial tissue is an inflammatory process fueled by estrogen. Research shows that eliminating or reducing dairy, red meat, gluten, high sugar foods and drinks can help reduce inflammation resulting from increased estrogen. Decreasing alcohol can also help.
Exercise: estrogen can be stored in body fat including abdominal fat. Decreasing excess body fat will decrease excess estrogen in your body to slow the progression of the endometrial growth.
Pelvic floor physical therapy: as mentioned above, the endometrial growths can irritate surrounding structures including the bladder, pelvic floor muscles, and rectum. These structures are directly assessed and treated in pelvic floor physical therapy. This can be done externally or intravaginally. In people with endometriosis, relaxing down these structures through manual therapy, stretches, and breathing is often key.
In Closing: Endometriosis & Pelvic Floor PT
Many women have accepted their pelvic pain as “normal” and something that women just have to deal with. That is not true! Medical intervention can be helpful for endometriosis however there is a bigger picture to explore, you are not just a uterus, you are a whole person!
If you are ready to solve your problem, reach out to us and speak with one of our Maryland pelvic floor physical therapists to get started today!
