The Pelvic Path Origin Story – Part 1
Here is a question I hear a lot:
“You have an interesting line of work, Marci. How did you get into this anyway?” That is what this blog post will be about.
In 2013, I had my first baby. When I was pregnant, I would get shooting pain down my leg and couldn’t walk for the first 10 minutes after waking up in the morning. After the birth, I also hobbled painfully along for a few weeks. I noticed, when I did a plank, a bread loaf looking shape along my abdomen. I realized that, even as a PT (Physical Therapist), I didn’t have the knowledge about how to heal myself and get stronger. And there was a dire lack of support from the medical profession. The message I got was mostly to “deal with it” until it “got better on it’s own”.
Fast-forward to 2015, I am working in an outpatient PT clinic, and my supervisor tells me “From now on, you will treat everyone who is pregnant or postpartum.” when I asked why, she says “you know more about it than anyone else.” I looked around and realized, I was the only PT who was also a mother.
I knew from my personal experience that having experienced pregnancy alone was not enough qualification. I delved into a course and got my Certification as an Exercise Specialist for Pregnancy and Postpartum. My mind was blown. All of these years, while I worked with the “core”, I had overlooked the bottom piece of it- the pelvic floor.
I’ll never forget the story of my first client who had urinary leakage. She cried telling me about it, as she had so much shame about it, and held it all inside as her “dirty little secret”. Her doctor had told her all she could do was get surgery. She planned on having another baby, and so she did nothing… for 3 years. She leaked with exercise, so she stopped exercising. As a result, she gained weight. Feeling bad about herself and her body, she stopped being intimate with her partner. The issue had spiraled and took over her entire sense of confidence and self worth.
Here’s the craziest part: She stopped leaking in 2 sessions. 2 sessions!!! I’m not saying people always stop leaking in only 2 sessions, but she did. She had suffered for so long. When she did a jumping jack and stayed dry, we laughed together, because all we could do was to laugh… or to cry….
Meanwhile, some facts that I had learned, started to weigh more and more heavily on me, leading me to realize, deep inside, that specializing in the pelvic floor was my path…
- 1/3 of women have some kind of pelvic floor dysfunction. Really, think about that. If you are in a room of 10 women, 3-4 of them suffer. Likely in silence.
- Men suffer too. Studies show 15% of men have issues as well. I think it’s likely underreported…vastly underreported.
Remember the “breadloaf” I found in my abdominal wall? Turns out, looking back, I could see what was happening in my own body. I had an abdominal separation as well as pelvic organ prolapse, too. I had never been screened for this before, and was never offered a plan for my own healing.
I started to help women with these issues to heal and get their confidence back. There was another issue, though. The traditional model for Physical Therapy let me down as a provider, leading me to come up with a better way. So I created a model of treatment that would allow me to help my clients, and allow them to get the care they so need and deserve.
