Pelvic Floor Therapy & Holistic Pelvic Care™
A Personalized Approach for You
They are passionate in helping women with their intimate healthcare needs.
Each doctor brings their specialized techniques to provide individual pelvic floor treatment options for a variety of hormonal, gynecological and women’s health conditions. The doctors have received a wide breadth of training under many experts in pelvic floor healthcare including world renowned pelvic floor physical therapist and author, Tami Kent, who developed and trademarked Holistic Pelvic Care™.
With these doctors on your team you will benefit greatly from their unique backgrounds to receive the most individualized treatment plan your ongoing pelvic floor health.
Holistic Pelvic Care™ supports you through guided meditation, breathing techniques and bringing awareness to your pelvic bowl. This therapy will support women who have concerns with pelvic pain, PMS, trauma, miscarriage, infertility, disconnection, stress, fatigue, and difficulty with intimacy.
Trigger Point Focused Pelvic Floor Therapy brings awareness to muscular balance with activation and relaxation to the muscles using range of motion exercises, stretching and internal trigger point work. This therapy will support women who have concerns with incontinence and pelvic floor pain, including sciatica, piriformis syndrome and low back pain.
The intention of both types of pelvic floor therapy is to decrease pain and adhesions in the pelvic floor. When women bring their awareness and breath to their pelvic bowl, they can begin to develop a positive relationship which inherently begins to increase circulation, allows trigger points to relax and brings balance to the pelvic bowl.
When the muscles and bones of the pelvic floor are aligned, women move more freely, without restrictions. Women often feel more relaxed and experience improved sensation and increased strength in the muscles of their pelvic floor. Building a pain free and positive relationship with your pelvic bowl, will also help you balance your hormones, improve fertility, reduce PMS and move through the stages of your hormonal years with ease.
If you would like to learn more about your hormones and being in balance,
Dr. Lisa and Dr. Meghan have a series of classes they have developed and continue to develop. Check out their current offerings here.
Women’s Pelvic Health “Power and Pleasure”!!
Pre-Menopausal Years: Finding Your Power
In addition to offering pelvic floor therapy, Dr. Sumner offers external focused uterine massage to address conditions such as painful menses and fertility. Her uterine massage incorporates both techniques from Maya Abdominal Massage and myofascial release to help align the uterus, promote circulation, and bring awareness to the pelvic bowl. She loves offering this therapy to pregnant and postpartum individuals as well to support birth and healing.
Women who have the following concerns, have successfully been supported with Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy:
- Menstrual Irregularities: Painful Menses, Fibroids, Endometriosis, PCOS
- Infertility and Recovery from Miscarriage
- Post-Partum Care, including Episiotomy or Stitches and Cesarean Recovery
- Muscle Weakness, Rectal or Bladder Prolapse; Pelvic Heaviness or Instability, Hemorrhoids
- Incontinence, Urinary Leakage
- Chronic Vaginal Infections, Urinary Tract Infections and Vaginal Cysts
- Pelvic Pain, Painful Intercourse, Low Libido
- Trauma to the Pelvic Region
- Vaginal Thinning, Pain and Adhesions due to Menopause, Post Chemotherapy and Radiation.
Positive Treatment Outcomes of Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy:
- Reduced pelvic pain
- Restored pelvic muscle balance and engagement
- Enhanced fertility
- Shifts in length, timing and color of menses
- Increased sexual health, libido and orgasm
- Improved physical sensation
- Improved circulation and lubrication
- Decreased vaginal infections, urinary tract infections and cyst formations
- Increased self awareness and confidence
- Increased recovery time from difficult pregnancies or childbirth (beginning at 6 weeks postpartum).
- Supported through healing of miscarriage and birth loss
- Supported through healing trauma
- Supported through recovery from chemotherapy related side effects
- Supported through transition into menopause and years beyond
Dr. Lisa and Dr. Meghan work closely together to assess and suggest which pelvic floor options will be the best treatment option for each patient. Some patients know exactly what they want and others try out each of the doctors. When the doctors notice that the patient needs to have another approach, they will communicate their findings and make recommendations to you.
During the initial session, you will discuss the issues you would like to address. The doctor will ask you about your medical history and provide you with an introduction to your pelvic floor muscles and structures. Your pelvic floor muscles will then be evaluated intra-vaginally, assessing for trigger points and tension patterns.
Your Pelvic floor therapy will combine stretching, active and passive range of motion exercises, trigger point work and follow up exercises to increase balance and blood flow to the organs, vaginal tissue and muscles of the pelvic floor.
Your Holistic Pelvic Care™ session will help you create a mind body connection with your pelvic bowl. It will consist of a guided meditation and restorative breath-work, to increase balance and blood flow to the Genitourinary organs and muscles of the pelvic bowl.
Follow-up sessions will begin with a reassessment and then focus primarily on treatment. The number of treatments suggested will depend upon the extent of your symptoms and how long you have been living with them. Five to seven sessions are typically recommended to restore healthy pelvic floor balance.