Pelvic Floor Dysfunction in Abilene

This is a muscle problem, and muscles respond to training.

The pelvic floor is a sling of muscle across the base of your pelvis. It holds the bladder, the bowel and, in women, the uterus in position. It opens when you want it to and stays closed when you do not. It also works with your diaphragm and deep abdominal muscles every time you breathe, lift, cough or stand up. When that coordination stops working, the symptoms turn up in places nobody connects back to a muscle.

What dysfunction actually looks like.

• Leaking when you cough, sneeze, laugh, lift or run
• A sudden urge you cannot hold, or reaching the bathroom and not quite making it
• Going far more often than the people around you, or getting up repeatedly at night
• Pelvic, tailbone or deep hip pain nobody has explained
• Pain with intercourse
• Pressure, heaviness or a dragging feeling, which can point toward prolapse
• Pregnancy and postpartum recovery, including after a caesarean
• Leaking and loss of control after prostate surgery

Men have a pelvic floor too. After a prostatectomy it almost always needs retraining, and that is expected rather than a sign that something has gone wrong.

Here is the part worth saying plainly. Leaking is common. Common is not the same thing as normal. It is not the price of having had children and it does not arrive with a birthday. Pregnancy, surgery and age all change the demands placed on those muscles, but none of them sentence you to organising your day around a bathroom. Most people wait years before mentioning it, usually because somebody once told them this was simply how it would be now. That was wrong.

How physical therapy in Abilene helps.

It starts with an evaluation in a private treatment room with the door closed, one on one with your therapist for the whole appointment. Everything is explained before it is done, and nothing is done until you say yes to it. You set the pace. If you want to stop, we stop, and that decision costs you nothing.

From there it is a training program, because that is what these muscles need. Retraining them to contract, and just as importantly to release, since a pelvic floor that never lets go causes as much trouble as a weak one. Coordination work, so they fire at the moment of the sneeze instead of after it. Breathing and pressure management, because what your diaphragm does changes what the pelvic floor absorbs. Then graded strengthening that follows you back into real life: standing, lifting, carrying, running. We look at your hips, back and core as well, because the pelvic floor rarely fails on its own.

Who you would be working with.

Dr. Taci Wilson, DPT, Owner, has specialised training in women’s health pelvic floor therapy. Tonya Mills has training in women’s health. Angie Hoerner is trained in biofeedback for incontinence. You will not be explaining your symptoms to somebody who has never heard them before.

What to expect from your recovery.

We measure where you are on day one, re-measure as we go, and tell you honestly what the numbers say. Any clinic that promises you a finish date before examining you is guessing. What we can tell you is that most people notice the direction change well before they reach the finish, and that the work itself is quiet and repeatable. There is more on how we treat it on the pelvic floor therapy page.

In most cases you do not need a referral to start. Kansas direct access lets most patients be evaluated without one, and we check your plan before your first visit.