Beyond the Kegel: The Truth About Pelvic Floor Wellness

• Introduction:
  • Lauren McLaughlin discusses the importance of the episode topic - pelvic floor health.
  • Guest introduction: Ingrid Harm-Ernandes, a physical therapist with over 38 years of experience, specializing in the pelvic floor for 26 years.
  • Highlight of Ingrid's achievements including mentoring and co-directing at Duke University.
  • Discussion about Ingrid's book "The Musculoskeletal Mystery" - a resource on pelvic floor health.
• Discussion Points:
  • Welcoming Ingrid and emphasizing the significance of talking about pelvic floor health.
  • The increasing number of women disclosing discomfort during sex and the need for more awareness.
  • There is societal hesitation in discussing pelvic floor issues.
  • Ingrid sheds light on the staggering statistic that one in three women in the U.S. suffer from these issues.
  • The evolution of conversations about pelvic floor health over the years.
  • The emergence and spread of pelvic health awareness in the United States compared to Europe and Australia.
  • The importance of research and the lag in evidence-based treatments.
  • The impact of social media: both positive in spreading awareness and negative in promoting misinformation.
  • Criticism of devices and products that make unrealistic promises about curing incontinence.
  • The importance of self-care and personal understanding in pelvic floor health.
• Key Takeaways:
  • The dangers of seeking quick fixes for pelvic health problems.
  • The myth surrounding Kegels and the need to understand pelvic floor contractions and relaxations.
  • Addressing the issue of incontinence and the significance of performing the right exercises.
  • Emphasizing functional exercises that mimic everyday activities.
  • Ingrid's book's approach to helping individuals identify and rectify their pelvic floor issues.
  • The interconnectedness of the body, where other muscular issues can impact pelvic floor health.
  • The relationship between the psoas muscle, which holds many emotions, and the pelvic floor.
  • Understanding the core as not just the abs but including the pelvic floor, diaphragm, and back muscles.
  • How the psoas acts as a body stabilizer and its role in conjunction with the pelvic floor.
  • The influence of hip muscles on the pelvic floor and the interconnectedness of the body's muscular system.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Lauren McLaughlin

HI! I am Lauren, a speaker, author, retreat guide and the Founder of Conscious Strong™. I love helping women unlock the pathway to peak performance and enlightenment in everyday living and movement. Having been a master-certified Pilates instructor and brain health practitioner for the past two decades, I have had the pleasure and experience to witness life transformations in 1000's of clients. As a mother of five children, I totally understand the challenges of balancing a busy family and career. It all takes patience and persistence. The Conscious Strong™ lifestyle comes purely from my journey to find balance and fulfillment in all areas of life. From my perspective, there are no limitations!

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Hosted by Lauren McLaughlin, a speaker, author, retreat guide, and the Founder of Conscious Strong™

Lauren McLaughlin: [00:00:00] welcome to today's episode of the other side of the studio where my guest, you want to stay tuned because we're talking about something super important is what's going on down there. So Ingrid Arm Hernandez, she is.

The guest today that is a physical therapist and has been for over 38 years. And she has specialized for 26 of those years with the pelvic floor and has been a mentor and co director at Duke university and has been doing so many amazing things. But most importantly is her book. She has authored the muscular skeletal mystery and it is a book, a resource that you will definitely want to pick up.

So grateful to have my guest. Ingrid Arm Hernandez. [00:01:00] So Ingrid, welcome. Welcome. I'm so grateful to have you here again because this topic we know is so important and we cannot have enough conversations about what's going on down there. So welcome. Welcome. Oh, thank you for having me. Looking forward to the discussion. Yeah. Yeah. So even since our last conversation, I have had numerous clients and friends and family.

pelvic_floor-u9y3pvrla__raw-synced-video-cfr_pelvic-floor_2023-sep-25-0209pm_the_other side of t: When I tell them about our conversations and [00:02:00] the upcoming retreat that we're hosting is they disclose, you know, so many important topics about discomfort with sex has been a big one that I've been hearing a lot. So why don't we just start diving into some of these topics and hearing from your perspective about how we can start talking about what's going on down there so that we can help so many women who we know are suffering.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's unfortunately such a kind of a black hole topic, I'll call it, because people just don't want to know about what's going on down there. And it's so important to realize how many women, you know, suffer from these problems, almost a third in the United States. I mean, that's pretty crazy, one in three, and yet nobody really wants to talk about it, right?

What do you feel in your years of experience? Because you've been practicing for now 38 years. I know that you have seen just a shift likely just in conversations, knowing what we [00:03:00] now have socially, social media and that so much is more available in terms of that. What have you seen as a shift in the discussions?

Because I am hearing more It's just still there is the embarrassment factor that I see with my clients. Yeah, I'd say there's been a good shift. I don't think the shift has been fast enough, quite honestly. But from when I started where, you know, literally I would have, you know, a young lady, pregnant, say to me, you know, Ingrid, I'm, I'm leaking.

You know, literally whisper, I'm, I'm leaking. And I'd kind of have to think to myself, well, what is that? And, you know, I had to go to the library to figure out what was going on. And at that point, that long ago, there really wasn't... pelvic health, women's health in the United States. There was some in Europe and in Australia, but it was coming over and it was starting.

So I really kind of dove in, you know, headfirst into it all and figured a lot [00:04:00] out and started just with some simplistic instruction and found some great turnaround. So that made me want to do more and more. And eventually, you know, the interest increased in the United States. to the point of being able to do a residency program at Duke with our physical therapist that, you know, they're there for a year with us, really immersed in it and seeing the beautiful changes there.

Research finally changing. I think research is still well behind what we need, unfortunately. And so many people want evidence based on their treatment, which is okay, but we need to have that innovation first and learn more about it and do more actually in the clinical setting. So that is happening now.

It's just unfortunately, like I said, it's, it's so, so slow still for me. And then to add to it, social media can be a positive and it can be a negative. I've seen some great information out there. Some of my colleagues are putting wonderful information out. And then I see some information. I'm like, wow, where [00:05:00] did that come from?

And it's actually. Telling people the reverse of what they need or, or telling, trying to sell, you know, some wonderful product that says, Oh, we're going to cure your problem when no, that's not going to happen. But unfortunately those are, in fact, on social media, we just had this big kind of to dog call it about, you know, a device that's out there that swears it can, you know, cure all incontinence and other problems.

And. It doesn't. It kind of breeds a, Oh, I need to have this device and do it and go to this office and over and over again, do this rather than self care, which pelvic PTs are very much into self care. We want to teach the person, this is how you take care of yourself. This is, so you're not just going to be with us now taking care of the problem, but.

down the road, a year, two and five years. Now you're going to continue to know how to take care of yourself. Right? And that's, I think a big difference between pelvic PT and these devices and things you see out there where it's so fancy and so headlining, but not really [00:06:00] what someone needs. Right. And would you say, because we know we're in a culture now where everybody wants a quick fix and it's either by way of, you know, take a pill or go buy this new shiny object that is going to magically make things.

better. And I'm hearing from you saying that that's just not the case in this case either down there, that, you know, it's the, what we have within us in terms of our ability for, you know, with self care, doing proper exercises. And applying those exercises, if I'm hearing you correctly in, in the proper way, versus it being as we hear Kegel, Kegel, Kegel, everybody do your Kegels.

I've had five kids and everybody's like, do your Kegels. But yet still, I've had the same issues like we're here bringing forward. I mean, it just comes with it. I mean, five kids, you know, you're going to start having those leaky moments. Right. And so just sharing with the audience, you've already shared some on what to be careful of looking out for these shiny [00:07:00] objects, . So what would you say would be the first step in terms of finding those right exercises to help? And we are already talking about incontinence, so why don't we just bring that forward now? Sure, sure. So incontinence is actually, in a way, is a little easier to deal with because it If we just talk about that alone, it's, it's one issue where a lot of people come forward with multiple issues, but it's good if we kind of define one thing at a time and incontinence.

So what people hear in the media is go do a thousand Kegels and please put the brakes on that. Right. A because no one needs to be doing a thousand Kegels and a lot of these devices actually encourage people. They said, this is what you do. Nobody, nobody needs to do a thousand Kegels. So I actually don't say the word Kegels in clinical practice.

I say a pelvic floor contraction and relaxation. And that's a very important point to understand. So with incontinence, it is usually good to do pelvic floor contractions, [00:08:00] but there are some instances like if you've overactive bladder with that incontinence, you can't make it to the bathroom in time, basically, then it may not be good to start with contractions because you may.

over excite the pelvic floor. It's an overactive pelvic floor is what we call it. And you get a tighter pelvic floor, which makes the urgency worse. So you can actually make the condition worse if you're not understanding what you should be doing. So in my book, the musculoskeletal mystery, how to solve your pelvic floor symptoms.

I know that's a mouthful. But I wanted to get all those important points in. I take four pages in that book to describe a pelvic floor contraction and relaxation. That's how important it is to know how to do a Kegel the right way. Right? So if someone were to say I'm going to go hold my pelvic floor contractions for 10 seconds and do a hundred of them and they have overactive bladder, they're going to wonder why now they have to run to the bathroom more [00:09:00] often.

Right? So the book teaches you how to find your pelvic floor. and how to relax your pelvic floor and what I describe in there is if you've difficulty with either one, you can't find how to contract it properly or you find you're squeezing your buttock or you're squeezing your face and doing all sorts of other things, then that's a sign that maybe you're not able to do the contraction properly.

If you cannot relax, that's a red flag. That's hey. Please, please go to a pelvic PT, let them assess what you can and cannot do and what's appropriate and then continue with the program. Right? So it's not to say your first jump is going to be pelvic PT. A lot of people can do this correctly if they've got the proper instruction, which is what the book does, and if they really struggle.

definitely go to pelvic PT. It's an awesome resource to be able to learn to do these things, these things right and not in isolation. So the third point of that is contract, relax, and now combination, meaning same with what you see [00:10:00] in instructions you do with patients is how do we put movements? together to mimic what you do every day in life, your functional self.

Like what do you do getting out of a chair, getting in a car, getting out of the car, lifting a baby, right? These things that we need to do kind of together to get the body as a whole in the right direction so that you can resolve these issues. And that's what these machines and tools and fancy things won't do is they're not going to teach you.

How do you incorporate that in your everyday routine? Love it. Love it. So aligned with the work that I know I do in the movement fields because it is exactly what I see when a client is just so restricted and held so tight, as we know, it affects every part of the system. And then definitely with the pelvic floor, I've seen many cases where That is no doubt the case.

But, what is beautiful, and how I speak with clients as well, is in terms of how do we start to soften the body first. [00:11:00] Because I find clients really just so tight, and just wound really tight, especially in the whole pelvic region. I bring in my practice that we know that, especially like the psoas, the psoas is one of our primary, it's our largest hip flexor, but down in our psoas it holds so much emotions and we use it obviously so much.

Can you share a little bit, because that does come forward in a lot of conversations that I have with clients male and female, in terms of overactive psoas and your relation in terms of Kind of bringing my work in here now in terms of just what I'm hearing because I'm curious to be honest with you.

and how that relates to pelvic floor function. Yeah. So when we talk about pelvic floor I really like to think of it as part of a whole core and not the core that people think. People think I want to get a washboard and that's my cord. Actually, [00:12:00] that's the least important part of the whole core, right?

So the pelvic floor is that foundation, right? So if we think of our core as our house, Our foundation is the pelvic floor, our diaphragm is the roof, our abdominal muscles in the front are the front of the house, and the back musculature is the back of the house, right? And I always say to folks, if you imagine somewhere to start to pull the foundation or crack your foundation, you can imagine it's going to have a tremendous impact on the rest of the core, right?

So the psoas is just one of those deep core muscles. And I like to think of it as absolutely, yes, it's a hip flexor. But it's a body stabilizer as well. So that means every time you pick up the opposite leg, the psoas of the hip that you're standing on now has to adjust. If I lift my hand up to reach for something, my psoas has to adjust.

So it's a constant activity muscle that takes the brunt of a lot of these activities. And if we don't look at that and [00:13:00] take care of it in conjunction with the pelvic floor, there's going to be a constant feedback, right? And I'll take it one step further. All of the hip muscles have an impact on our pelvic floor.

So the obturator internus, what a fancy sounding muscle, right? It's a rotator of our. Our hip, it is directly connected to our pelvic floor. So there's just a sheath that connects those two muscles. So you can imagine if the hip is excited or irritated from the psoas, it can be. It can get the pelvic floor excited or irritated and vice versa.

So we always have to look at the hip when we're looking at pelvic floor conditions. I, I've had so many women say, well, you know, I had a hip replacement. And now all of a sudden I have incontinence. I didn't have it before, right? I don't understand. And the doctor just said, Oh, well, it's, you know, getting older.

I'm like, Oh no, please don't say that. It has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the disruption of that whole core mechanism. Yeah. That has now disrupted the ability for the pelvic floor to function at its finest. [00:14:00] Yeah. Right. So we have to look at all of those components. Yeah. So, so important. So what I'm hearing is.

Definitely knowledge and understanding and we're not saying you need to understand or read all of Gray's Anatomy, but having just some of these basic muscle group knowledge, right? I just find truly is where, and even my practice is where we are missing. There's misinformation out there. But if we just took the time to educate ourselves, but also in the fields that we are in and trying to help guide our clients better by educating them in a light version of anatomy, that is so, so important.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly why I wrote the book actually. Yeah. Cause I was frustrated that my patients didn't know how to get to me. Doctors didn't know how to send the patients to me. So talk about. Grey's Anatomy Light, the whole first part of the book is Grey's Anatomy Light. It really talks about what are the [00:15:00] muscles?

What are their functions? How do they connect to the core? How do they connect to your diagnosis? What does it mean in treatment and self care? So it makes all those connections in the book because I felt like people out there just Didn't understand. They didn't know. They never had the opportunity to learn.

It wasn't that they didn't want to, but they didn't have the opportunity. So this gives them that opportunity. And it is a wonderful opportunity because it is a book that I keep in my office. It is beside me with every client. So I'm so grateful for your book. So all of you listeners and practitioners, and so we're bringing this forward to, as a practitioner, myself and not knowing myself, even though I have.

I've studied and I've studied and I am in the field of movement and a movement specialist. There are still many areas that were a little gray in my area. So I'm grateful for your book and we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. Another, you know, very important [00:16:00] message that you just shared is that thinking, oh, well, this is just how it is.

I'm, you know, I've hit menopause and oh well, it's just part of, you know, getting older. That is not the case. We know that there is the ability to even reverse some of these symptoms, like incontinence, or if it's painful sex, or just other, you know, pelvic concerns, and that I hear from you that there is no age, like you, you You can treat this at any age.

Absolutely. I had patients in their 90s. And actually, they did wonderfully. They sometimes did better than my younger clients because they could really focus. They had the time to say, I am going to do this and I'm going to do this right. And they were just such a joy, you know, to treat. And, and they said, well, you know, I've been told for 30 and 40 years.

I should just live with this. It's part of being a woman. It's going through menopause. I should and I was shocked to learn that I could do [00:17:00] something about it and here I am at 95. I love it. Isn't that awesome? I mean, to know, so everybody out there realize it doesn't matter your age, you have the ability to get better.

You just need that right instruction, that right education, that right person to help you find your way. Absolutely. So ladies and gents out there listening. There is hope. Okay. It's never, ever too late. And you've hit a pretty, again, I'm going to bring forward the, you know, our culture and especially a younger generation, not knocking on you guys.

It's just. But everybody wants it fast, and, you know, wants it after round one, we want to be done. And it's like, that's not the case. So, in the work I teach as well, it's like, it takes persistence, and it really takes the dedication. And so, all of you, no matter what your age is, if you are experiencing, especially postpartum, Again, I've been there.

You're in your thirties and you're really embarrassed going, Oh my gosh, I am peeing in my pants. [00:18:00] Guys, it does take the dedication and the time and the practice to really help find the strength that you need in order to overcome some of these concerns that do not have to be a concern. Yeah, I would say, and if, if you can think of this, you're investing in yourself.

So if you invest the time now in yourself, it will be so much better down the road because if you can avoid the medications or the surgeries or whatever it may be down the road, you are helping yourself avoid maybe side effects or other things that happen. So if you can address it. As soon as possible, you're going to get out of that as soon as possible, and you're going to be able to do so much more, you know, they talk about, well, it's important to exercise, right?

We know that we know that literature research backs us up that we know that that is the best way for us to live our lives. But if a woman says or a man says, because I have plenty of men that I've treated too, Oh, I don't think I can do that because I might leak. I don't think I can do that [00:19:00] because it will hurt.

Whatever the reason may be, then they don't do those exercises. So if we can resolve those issues, we can get them to exercising and leading a healthier life down the road. And I think that's that important investment that we're talking about. So your investment of a little more time and effort now pays off.

A hundred, a thousand fold during the rest of your life. Huge dividends, I know, in terms of just overall health. It impacts everything. I mean, you just look at your relationship health, right? You know, this impacts so much if you're just embarrassed about just even leaking with your partner. But let's talk about some other issues too, because again, I've, I've heard quite a number of concerns as of recently and one was a, a client and she was bringing forward that she has hemorrhoids and she was asking me, well, are hemorrhoids a part of our pelvic floor?

Are there exercises that we can do? And I said, well, I'm no, absolutely. So can you touch on [00:20:00] that, that topic alone, but also just Also, what you're hearing in terms of, you know, how it's impacting relationships, you know, intercourse is painful but then when you're bringing forward topics like this client shared that she has hemorrhoids and she was like, I'm embarrassed about that as well.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. I would say hemorrhoids as a pelvic PT, we would approach from a couple of different directions. Sometimes that's indicating a weak pelvic. floor and sometimes that's indicating a tight pelvic floor. So it's interesting if the pelvic floor is weak and bowel movements aren't performed well, and there's a lot of pressure on the pelvic floor hemorrhoids can increase.

So we might want to strengthen that particular patient, but the reverse that is a little more common, which is a very over. Overactive tight pelvic floor, and that kind of sounds kind of counterintuitive, like, well, if you're tight, shouldn't it pull everything up, right? But quite the reverse. What it means is the person is probably having a terrible [00:21:00] time having a bowel movement.

So we address both what's happening within the colon, the diet, fluid intake, all of that, and how to have a proper bowel movement, which sounds kind of funny. It's like. Shouldn't everybody know how to have a bowel movement? But, quite frequently, people learn from a young age on to strain, to hold their breath, to really bear down, instead of being able to breathe properly.

Remember, we talked about the core, right? So, it's involved here, too. How do we use our abdominals properly? How do we not create a force? How do we relax our pelvic floor? So, this person that has this overactive pelvic floor, They're the kind of person we have to teach to relax it and then relax it during a bowel movement.

So if we can change the consistency of the bowel, we can change how they have the bowel movement. A lot of times, the hemorrhoid will start to improve because they're not putting that daily strain on the pelvic floor. So yes, it absolutely has to do with the pelvic floor, but it's more than just the musculature.

It's a big scope of things that are going on [00:22:00] that the patient has to learn for their lifetime. Yeah, that once they start doing it, they realize, Oh my gosh, I, I've had patients that literally don't have a bowel movement for a month. Oh. Wow. Right. And so you can't imagine. They look pregnant, right? Yeah. And their whole life is so disrupted.

This is the extreme that we're talking about. Yeah. So how do you change someone's life with something as constipation that, again, people don't want to talk about? Yeah. Well, everybody's got constipation. I'm just going to take a mess of laxatives. That realizing that that could actually make the problem worse, right?

So we have to take that all the way back and teach them all sorts of things to help themselves while we work on it physically, on the pelvic floor, the abdominals, the back, the strength, the core, everything. And that's where you would come in too. It's like, how do you teach them to move their whole body?

So they encourage peristaltic motion, the motion that our colon is supposed to do, right? Yeah. So it's, it's a, it's an approach of, uh, Many fold, many different directions that we come at when we're teach, when we're, we're treating and [00:23:00] teaching someone, you know, how to take care of themselves at that.

Yeah, absolutely. So not to overwhelm you guys out there. I know that was a mouthful and that was a lot where a lot of people do shut down when they start going, Whoa, that's just a lot of information. It really does not need to be that difficult. I promise. So, and we actually would love to hear from all of you.

So just at any. Time that you want to drop. I don't know if I'm saying this in the appropriate place. He, you edit that. Okay. I do want to be able to drop a line and have some resources to be able to share. But to start small, and it does start with finding that right mentor, and whether it is a pelvic PT, whether it is a movement specialist it does require both.

And it is really starting to understand your body. And I truly feel, Ingrid, that it is now at a point to where I am seeing in the work that I'm doing and it's re educating as we've already brought forward, but it is [00:24:00] almost like deconditioning. It's like reconditioning now how we think, you know, I think back when my grandmother told me that she was pregnant and had to stay in the back of the church.

She was not allowed in the church because she was pregnant and you know, that I just find absurd. But, uh. But it goes back generations, right? And so a lot of that conditioning, even around our menstrual cycle, Oh, it's embarrassing. We don't talk about that. Ew, it's dirty. We have to, guys, come on, we've got to, like, make it beautiful, because it is a beautiful experience, and, but it is going to take this re conditioning, if that's the right word that I want to say.

So it is breaking down some of these old, you know, conditions that, some of them we are not even aware of, but we're still holding just because of, you know, my mother reading the book about a period when I was little. I mean, I think my sisters didn't even [00:25:00] get that. Sorry, I got really close there. Yeah, I mean, my sisters were even upset because I was the only, I was the youngest of three girls.

And my mom sat down and just read a book at a very young age about a period, and it was like a dot, and this is associating this with my body. We just need to educate our women and young boys too, because they like to joke about it, but when we know as we get older, those jokes turn into fear and embarrassment.

Yeah, yeah, education. It's absolutely the key. I mean, the more we can get out and give realistic, real information, the more it sinks in, you know, I've been doing this for a while, really talking about it and it still amazes me, you know, when I start talking with someone who's not within the field that they're like, I had it.

No idea. That's that's the response. I still get 2023 still get this response. I had no idea. I [00:26:00] had no idea. It was something I could help myself with. I had no idea. This isn't something I had to live with. You know, we talk about menopause. There's a lot of information. I would say in the last like 2 to 3 years.

There's a lot of information about menopause out there. But when I look through that information, Yeah. It's all about usually hormones and night sweats and the things that we commonly Do you see, but what we don't talk about still is the pelvic floor, that during that time period, we're more likely to have incontinence where that's urinary and fecal incontinence, we're likely to have constipation, we're likely to have pain with sex, where all of these things still are under the table.

And that amazes me, like, well, if we're willing to talk about all these other things, why? Are we not willing to talk about that? Why is it still down there? Yeah. Why? Yeah. You know, so I really try to hit it hard, you know, and really try to get that information out there that we don't have to live with these things.

Why? Why should we think we have to live with pain with sex [00:27:00] or stop having sex? Right. You know, why? I don't know. Yeah. It still surprises me to this day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that is why I'm so excited about the retreat, uh, that we're bringing forward the first of what we, you know, plan on having many to get the word out and start having conversations and real conversations.

And we're excited to share that we're going to have a retreat here in North Carolina, October 25th. So a lot of information will be shared then we'll have a lot that we have been discussing, but also some very practical tools. So share what you'll be bringing forward in the retreat. Yeah, so we'll start a little bit with that anatomy, like we were talking about.

Just to build a foundation, quite, quite literally build a foundation on the foundation. And give the groundwork so that when we dive into the, what I like to call our lab work. Just our fun work. It makes sense why we're [00:28:00] doing things and it's real time practical. And the cool thing is I think we can, you know, with our audience, you know, people sharing things we can say, well, you know, this is something you can do.

This is something that will relate specifically to what you're experiencing in your life. This will help you with your life. Cause it's going back to what we both like to do is teach people how to take care of themselves. So I think by the time we're done with the. retreat. There's serious and there's fun, right?

There's practical. There's, let's learn a little bit about how not only can we help ourselves, but our loved ones because this is very applicable to everyone else in your life too. So taking this course, you may be that advocate and that person. And I think that's what we're hoping for too, is that. You know, we have other advocates in this world talking about pelvic issues as if it's an okay, normal thing to do.

And I always like to say that these conditions are common, they're not normal, but we want to normalize the talk around it. We want to make it such that people are not [00:29:00] concerned, embarrassed, and just don't want to talk about it because it's not okay to talk about. Indeed, indeed, and I know that I'm bringing the movement side of it, which is very much the foundation of the work that I do here at Conscious Strong, and it is making it fun.

And, you know, just if we have to term exercise, which I try to pull out of my vocabulary these days, I don't like the word exercise, I call it movement. And this is becoming what movement should be a lifestyle. And not something that you feel you have to subscribe to a particular way or thing or device, as we were saying earlier.

But it's how do you start to integrate movement as well as the understanding of your body and this particular case, the pelvic floor, how do we start to normalize it, as you're saying, so that it does become just this natural lifestyle and it does start with having conversations and having, I guess, Better education around, you know, this topic as well as many [00:30:00] others that relate to our body as a, you know, spiritual and a beautiful emotional being that we are.

Yeah, I, I like the idea of that related to life, related to function and looking at things with a different perspective. And what I mean by that is it's not like, okay, I have to do these exercises for the rest of my life. It's more. I've learned these new techniques. It's a different way than I was doing it before.

It doesn't take more time. It doesn't take thought. It becomes integrated in your daily routine to the point where you realize, wow, I'm living a better life because I'm doing it this way now. Not I'm doing an exercise. I'm doing something someone told me to do. It's wow, I'm I can do this so much better, and I can get back to maybe some things I was not doing before.

I mean, to see the enjoyment on my patients faces when they realized Wow, I can do that again, and I feel comfortable doing it, I'm [00:31:00] happy doing it, I feel better doing it, my significant other is happier, my children are happier, you know, you, women often are the center and then if, if they get better, everybody around them gets better, right?

So I think it's so, so great to see. You know, these changes, you know, in my patients, I think that was one of the most rewarding thing is when they said, I can do this again. I love doing it. Thank you for, you know, getting me back. And I'm like, well, it wasn't me. We're a team. We worked on this together. And I think the retreat kind of will show that is teamwork.

How do we become a team? Or how do you form a team that helps? So I think that's going to be important discussions that we'll have that you realize you can be that that ringleader of your team, whoever they happen to be. It doesn't matter whatever help you need. And I think that's some of the fun that we'll have is just how do you change those things in your life?

Absolutely. It is what it is. It gets me up every single day is just seeing when [00:32:00] clients have that, I call it the light. You just see everything just lighten and you can just, you know, the eyes show that something has shifted in their body and it's so beautiful. And yes, indeed, that is what we will be sharing at this retreat.

So excited about it. But firstly, it is getting a copy and everyone gets a copy of the book, right? Yep. So the musculoskeletal mystery. And describe a little bit more about the book. I know you've shared just a little bit, but it is a fantastic book. Very, very easy to read. So thank you for that because too many books out there are so overwhelming, you know, a little over the head, but you have made it so easy to read and follow and understand the pelvic floor.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it will be kind of, kind of think of it as a manual for the course in a, in a way. But on its own, after we go through that whole anatomy component, I also have a whole section on how to find your team in there. So it goes [00:33:00] through what all the specialists may be that you may encounter when you're talking about pelvic health.

So that could be urogyne, gynecology, it could be OBGYN, it could be urology. It could be sex therapist. It could be mental health, could be anything from Pilates to yoga. It just kind of wraps all of that together so that you're saying, Oh, okay, well, I may need a little extra help with this to help me get to that next stage.

Then we talk about what happens in a pelvic floor. And the reason I put that in is a lot of folks are worried about going to a pelvic floor therapist because they don't know what it involves. And I've had many doctors say, well, I referred the patient, but they were just so worried about going. So again, I wrote the book as I thought, let me calm people's fears about what happens because I've had patients literally as I'm walking down the hall to the room say, I'm afraid of what you're going to do.

Literally, that's what they say to me in the beginning. Right. And. And that, that woke me [00:34:00] up. I learned so much from my patients. Forget about book knowledge. My patients probably taught me more than anything else in my career. And so I would sit and talk and I'd say, we're going to talk first and we're going to understand your particular situation before we ever do anything.

Then we do the assessment and we do internal exams as pelvic PTs if we find that's appropriate. So we can determine what is the pelvic floor doing, is it overactive, underactive, what's going on with that. Then the next chapter is all about treatment. So you can understand that maybe if we're treating someone who has painful sex, that we may start with some manual techniques, we may not.

We may show them how to use tools like There's things called S shaped wands and dilators that help stretch the tissue carefully and cautiously. There may be lubricants that we have them use. There may be biofeedback that we use. There's all these different things that we could potentially use as we find [00:35:00] appropriate.

So pelvic PT is going to reason through the entire assessment and figure out what's right for that individual patient. I could have two patients in the door with the same exact diagnosis. I don't necessarily treat them the same because they're not the same person, right? Yeah. Right. And then the whole last section is self help.

So it's how do you do some of these things we talked about. It actually helps you learn how to do those things on your own. And then there's a tiny section at the end where I say this is how you avoid Dr. Google. Thank you. It's reputable resources on how to learn more about the condition. Yeah, yeah. So all of you listeners, if you are having concerns down there definitely, you know, pay attention, definitely buy her book.

I mean, I'm just saying everybody go buy it because it is, even if you're not having the conditions. Because we all are going to have them at some point in our lives, but get the book. It is such a helpful [00:36:00] resource and I'm so grateful that we have connected and looking forward to experiencing more with you at the retreats and taking that.

On the road. Are we taking this on the road? I'd love to. I'm always the, you know, optimistic out there, but yeah, we do want to get this out there so that we can start having conversations about what's going on down there. So thank you, Ingrid. I am so grateful to have this conversation with you here today.

And yep, we'll just see you at the retreat. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. All right.