This blog contains excerpts from an interview with Tara Sullivan, PT, DPT, PRPC, WCS, IF. Tara started in the healthcare field as a massage therapist, practicing over ten years including three years of teaching massage and anatomy and physiology. Tara has specialized exclusively in Pelvic Floor Dysfunction treating bowel, bladder, sexual dysfunctions, and pelvic pain since 2012. 

Acute pain can indicate specific injury to the body. Chronic pain is very different. With Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP) the initial injury has healed, but the pain continues because of changes in the nervous system, muscles, and tissues. Recognizing that the nervous system influences pain perception, especially in the chronic pelvic pain population, is the first step in treating these patients, but is it enough? Tara Sullivan and Alyson Lowrey are presenting a new remote course on chronic pelvic pain called Pain Science for the Chronic Pelvic Pain Population scheduled for July 17-18, 2021.

The medical definition of pain is an unpleasant feeling that is conveyed to the brain by sensory neurons. Pain is a universal experience that serves to alert the brain to potential damage to the body. It performs the function of triggering avoidance to preserve itself from harm. Oddly, the strength and unpleasantness of pain is not directly related to the nature or extent of the damage. 

This blog contains excerpts from an interview with Pamela A. Downey, PT, DPT, WCS, BCB-PMD, PRPC, Pamela is a Board Certified Clinical Specialist in Women’s Health Physical Therapy and Board Certified in Biofeedback for Pelvic Muscle Dysfunction. She is the owner of Partnership in Therapy, private practice in Coral Gables, Florida. Dr. Downey's treatment focuses are pelvic floor dysfunction, urogynecological and colorectal issues, spine dysfunction, osteoporosis, and complaints associated with pregnancy and postpartum. Her mission is to educate and integrate healthy lifestyles for patients on the road to wellness.

Physical therapists often require special training to treat pudendal neuralgia. Pamela A. Downey is partnering with H&W to teach the Pudendal Neuralgia and Nerve Entrapment Remote Course, scheduled for June 19-20, 2021. This course teaches pudendal neuralgia diagnostic skills for practitioners to have an improved impact in treating patients with pudendal nerve/pelvic floor muscle dysfunctions.

Pudendal neuralgia is also known as Alcock’s syndrome, pudendal canal syndrome, or cyclist syndrome. This condition is caused by tension, compression, or entrapment of the pudendal nerve, and leads to pelvic pain, sexual dysfunction, difficulty with urination and defecation, among other issues.

Working with Physiatry for Pelvic Pain is a new remote course created by Dr. Allyson Shrikhande, scheduled for Jun 27, 2021. This course overviews the synergistic nature of pelvic physiatry with pelvic floor physical therapy, in hopes of promoting collaboration for the care of male and female chronic pelvic pain patients.

Dr. Allyson Shrikhande is a board-certified Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist and is the Chair of the Medical Education Committee for the International Pelvic Pain Society. Allyson has published peer-reviewed articles on the treatment of muscle pain in academic journals and works closely with renowned pelvic pain gynecologists and urologists. Taking a team approach, she works with specialists in pelvic floor physical therapy, kinetics and movement, as well as acupuncturists, nutritionists, cognitive-behavioral therapists, and functional medicine physicians.

The following is our interview with Allyson Shrikhande on physiatry.

Rachna Mehta, PT, DPT, CIMT, OCS, PRPC is the author and instructor of the new Acupressure for Pelvic Health course. She is Board certified in Orthopedics, is a Certified Integrated Manual Therapist and is also a Herman and Wallace certified Pelvic Rehab Practitioner. An alumni of Columbia University, Rachna brings a wealth of experience to her physical therapy practice with a special interest in complex orthopedic patients with bowel, bladder and sexual health issues. Rachna has a personal interest in various eastern holistic healing traditions and she noticed that many of her chronic pain patients were using complementary health care approaches including Acupuncture and Yoga. Building on her orthopedic and pelvic health experience, Rachna trained with renowned teachers in Acupressure and Yin Yoga. Her course Acupressure for Pelvic Health brings a unique evidence-based approach and explores complementary medicine as a powerful tool for holistic management of the individual as a whole focusing on the physical, emotional and energy body. Rachna is a member of the American Physical Therapy Association and a member of APTA’s Pelvic Health section.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a branch of NIH, pain is the most common reason for seeking medical care¹. Over the last several decades there has been an increasing interest in safe and efficacious treatment options as our healthcare system faces a crisis of pills and opioid use. Among complementary medicine approaches, Acupressure has come forth as an effective non-pharmacologic therapeutic modality for symptom management.

Acupressure is widely considered to be a noninvasive, low cost, and efficient complementary alternative medical approach to alleviate pain. It is easy to do anywhere at any time and empowers the individual by putting their health in their hands. Acupressure involves the application of pressure to points located along the energy meridians of the body. These acupoints are thought to exert certain psychologic, neurologic, and immunologic effects to balance optimum physiologic and psychologic functions². Acupressure can be used for alleviating anxiety, stress and treating a variety of pelvic health conditions including Chronic Pelvic Pain, Dysmenorrhea, Constipation, digestive disturbances and urinary dysfunctions to name a few.

Pauline H. Lucas, PT, DPT, WCS, NBC-HWC joins the Herman & Wallace faculty with her new course, Mindfulness for Rehabilitation Professionals. The course launches January 2021 and discusses the impact of chronic stress on health and wellbeing, and the latest research on the benefits of mindfulness training for both patients and healthcare providers. The following comes from Pauline, who hopes you will join her for her course.

As an integrative physical therapist treating people with pelvic pain, digestive issues, headaches, and various persistent pain conditions, I council my patients on strategies to reduce a chronically activated stress response (sympathetic dominance). Many of them are living stressful lives, and their medical condition can be an additional stressor. I share with them that by reducing their stress level and improving their overall awareness of what makes them feel better and worse, they may affect their condition in a positive way. When I ask if they have any experience with meditation, I often get the response: “Oh I tried that many years ago and I’m really bad at it; I just can’t meditate.” When I ask them to explain a bit more, they tell me that their mind is always super busy, they are always thinking, and when they try to stop the thoughts during meditation, it doesn’t work.

This is when I explain one of the essential concepts of meditation: It’s okay to have thoughts. In fact, it’s completely normal to become more aware of the busy thoughts when you first sit down to meditate. The trick is to allow the thoughts to be there, and at the same time keeping awareness with the focus of the meditation practice (i.e., the breath, a mantra, etc.). When we don’t resist the thoughts, the mind naturally gradually calms down, resulting in fewer and calmer thoughts. This is when I typically see relief on my patient’s face when they realize they may not be a bad meditator after all, and they are often willing to give the practice another try.

Mia Fine, MS, LMFT, CST joins the Herman & Wallace faculty in 2020 with her new course on Sexual Interviewing for Pelvic Health Therapists! The new course is launching this April 4-5, 2020 in Seattle, WA; Lecture topics include bio-psycho-social-spiritual interviewing skills, maintaining a patient-centered approach to taking a sexual history, and awareness of potential provider biases that could compromise treatment. Labs will take the form of experiential practice with Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual-Sexual Interviewing Skills, case studies and role playing. Check out Mia's interview with The Pelvic Rehab Report, then join her for Sexual Interviewing for Pelvic Health Therapists!

Tell us about yourself, Mia!
My name is Mia Fine, MS, LMFT, CST and I’ve been a Licensed Marriage and Family therapist for four years. I am an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and my private practice is Mia Fine Therapy, PLLC. I see these kinds of patients: folks with Erectile Dysfunction, Pre-mature Ejaculation, Vaginismus, Dyspareunia, Desire Discrepancy, LGBTQ+, Ethical Non-monogamy, Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, Relational Concerns, Improving Communication.

What can you tell us about the new course?
This course will offer a great deal of current and empirically-founded sex therapy and sex education resources for both the provider as well as the patient. This course will add the extensive skills of interviewing for sexual health. It also offers the provider a new awareness and self-knowledge on his/her/their own blind spots and biases.

Earlier this year, Herman & Wallace sponsored the first ever pelvic rehab course for physios in Nairobi, Kenya in partnership with The Jackson Clinics Foundation. After returning from that course, Kathy Golic, PT spent months writing a new course, adapting information from Pelvic Floor Level 1, Level 2A, and the Pregnancy and Postpartum series. This October, Kathy (along with co-instructors Casie Danenhauer and Sherine Aubert) returned to teach her follow-up course that expanded on the first module, introducing lectures and labs tailored to the community of pelvic physios in Kenya. This dispatch comes from instructor Kathy Golic, PT, who sent in this article shortly after returning from the course. Huge thanks to Kathy and her colleagues Sherine Aubert and Casie Danenhauer for doing this important work!

It has been a week now, and as I type looking out on the windy rainy day, it is hard to believe that I was so recently in a warm, sheltered classroom sequestered from the hustle and bustle of Nairobi. A place which has captured my heart. Really it is the people, especially my new “sisters” who I spent so much time with during this last two-week course module. Once again, I experienced chill bumps every day from witnessing the growth, the stories, the wisdom and the compassion of these bright, motivated, committed physiotherapists who came back for the 2nd module in our series to help them become experts in the field of Pelvic Health. This module covered topics of Pregnancy, Postpartum care, Prolapse, Colorectal Conditions including fecal incontinence and constipation, and Coccydynia. We had a terrific printed course manual for this 2nd in the series, thanks to the partnership of Herman and Wallace and Jackson Clinics Foundation. With my wonderful and resourceful, skilled colleagues from LA, Casie Danenhaur, and Sherine Aubert, we included comprehensive lectures, lively demonstrations, hands on creative experiential learning opportunities, and awesome supervised lab training sessions. We also had a lot of case study discussions, and live case studies where we assisted the students, who are practicing physiotherapists, in conducting thorough assessments and clinical reasoning processes to treat and make plans to further the progress of their patients.

All of this in itself was incredibly rewarding. But there was more. The power of sacrifice we witnessed. The power of solidarity and true generosity. Most of these women continued to have to work after class even while in this two-week module; in class from 8-4, but then going on their way, some of them through heavy Nairobi traffic, to treat patients in their offices, or to work hospital shifts. One student heading out after a Wed. afternoon class told me that she was going to work from 7- midnight, then would sleep until 4am, then back to work until 7 am, before returning to class at 8 am. She also had to miss one class to participate in her mentorship for her ortho advanced diploma, so had to make up a test with us the next day. (she aced the test!) Now for the generosity. I will share just 1 of many stories. One of the physios asked a patient of hers whom she felt she could use some help with, if she would mind traveling to the KMTC classroom where we were teaching so the other students could learn, while we the visiting instructors, would help guide in her assessment and care. This woman agreed, and got up at 3:30 am, traveled by bus for 3 hours to come for her treatment. She willingly shared her story, and it was tough to hear. She worked as a vegetable vendor carrying produce on her back, lifting it, and sitting on a stone for hours each day. She, a mother of 5 grown children with an unemployed husband. Her physio and the class did quite well in their assessment and with treatment and suggestions. She seemed pleased. Then as she prepared to leave, some of the physio students “passed the hat” and collected 7,000 kshillings (about $70.00) and presented this humble lady with the money so that she could afford transportation home. It is my understanding that most Kenyans spend 50% of their income on food, so sharing with this patient was a true sacrifice. But for these ladies, there was no question about it. This is how they live and how they work. They are themselves so grateful for the knowledge, skills and experience that they are getting through this program, and they will pay it backwards and forwards. My colleagues this time and last time, are also indebted to them for all they have taught us. It is truly an honor and privilege to be part of this great program, and I too am thankful for all the team players in this venture.

As more and more patients seek care for pelvic floor dysfunction, the need for more qualified practitioners is becoming apparent. Many patients prefer to see a clinician who they identify with, which is why it is important for practitioners of all genders to learn to treat pelvic floor dysfunction. Because much of the public's awareness of pelvic rehab comes out of women's health, the vast majority of pelvic health practitioners are women.

There is currently a shortage of male pelvic health practitioners. To help us understand why it is so important to fix that, we reached out to several male clinicians who have attended the Male Pelvic Floor: Function, Dysfunction, and Treatment course to ask them about the need for more men in the field. Here are some answers to the question:

“Why is it important to have male providers available to treat male patients in the field of pelvic health?”

Grant Headley of Bridgetown Physical Therapy of Portland, Oregon (www.bridgetownpt.com)
While as PT’s we all approach our patients with interest in helping them as individuals, some of our patients feel more comfortable sharing certain details with a provider of the same gender. Many of the hang-ups some men have about receiving care from a female provider are related to an older generation, to certain traditional or religious cultural beliefs, or to certain beliefs about propriety related to receiving care.

We are thrilled to announce that Herman and Wallace instructor, Carolyn McManus, MPT, will co-present an educational session with internationally recognized pain researcher Etienne Vachon-Pressseau, PhD at APTA’s NEXT meeting in Chicago on June 13. Dr. Vachon-Presseau is an assistant professor at the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University and has led pioneering research into stress-associated brain changes in patients with persistent pain.

In a presentation entitled, When Stress Complicates Care for Your Patient in Pain: Evidence-Based Mechanisms and Treatment, Dr. Vachon-Presseau will discuss the latest research and theory illuminating the role of stress in the maladaptive neuroplastic brain changes observed in patients with chronic pain. Carolyn will discuss direct clinical applications of this marterial and highlight research on the role of mindfulness in the self-regulation of stress and pain. She will share a practical model for integrating mindfulness into physical therapy for the treatment of persistent pain conditions.

We are excited that Carolyn has been offered this honor to co-present at NEXT with a world renown researcher in the field of pain and contribute her insights from an over 30-year career specializing in mindfulness and pain. She will offer her popular course, Mindfulness-Based Pain Treatment, in Portland OR, July 27 and 28 and in Houston TX, October 26 and 27. We recommend these unique opportunities to train with Carolyn, a nationally recognized leader trailblazing the successful applications of mindfulness into the field of physical therapy. Hope to see you there!

The following is our interview with Jose Antonio (Tony) Rodriguez Jr, COTA. Tony practices in Laredo, TX where he is also studying Athletic Training at the Texas A & M University. He recently attended Pelvic Floor Level 1 and plans to continue pursuing pelvic rehabilitation with Herman & Wallace. He was kind enoguh to share some thoughts about his experiences with us. Thank you, Tony!

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am a COTA in Laredo where I was born and raised. My goal is to provide pelvic floor therapy to my community. I have been in school for quite some time. I have associate's degrees as a paramedic and occupational therapy assistant. I studied nursing briefly (finished my junior year). My bachelors is in psychology. I’m currently studying athletic training in Texas A & M International University in Laredo. My ultimate academic goal is acquiring my doctorate in physical therapy.