Innate Wisdom Podcast

What It's About:

Join Loren Sofia, Functional Fertility Coach and owner of Innate Fertility, and Dr. Kelly Sammis, physical therapist, educator of dry needling and all things pelvic, Pilates instructor, wife and mama, as they discuss the importance of a healthy pelvic floor ‒ for both women and men..

In this episode, you’ll learn:

-What the pelvic floor is
-Where the pelvic floor is
-What the pelvic floor does
-What’s common versus normal function for the pelvic floor
-Sneaky signs of pelvic floor dysfunction
-How to tell if your pelvic floor is functioning normally
-The benefits of pelvic floor health for pregnancy
-If you really need pelvic floor support postpartum
-The benefits of pelvic floor health for men
-Dry needling for pelvic health
-The truth about kegels

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Loren: Welcome to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Sofia, Functional Fertility Coach and Owner of Innate Fertility, and I'm honored to guide you through each episode, where we'll cover not just fertility, but how to rediscover the innate wisdom of your body, restore your connection with your physiology, bioenergetics and metabolism, and get back in touch with Mother Nature and ancestral traditions.

Welcome to another episode of the Innate Wisdom Podcast. On today's show, I'm excited to invite my personal physical therapist, educator of dry needling and all things pelvic health, Pilates instructor, wife and mama, Dr. Kelly Samas, to chat all about the importance of a healthy pelvic floor for both women and men.

If you've been around me personally or on my Instagram for a while, you've probably heard me refer to the pelvic floor as the epicenter of [00:01:00] creation, because it's where the magic happens, it's where your baby's created, where your baby grows, and from where your baby meets the world for the very first time.

There's also a lot of taboo surrounding the pelvic floor, because honestly, if you have issues with your pelvic floor, they're pretty embarrassing. And Dr. Kelly and I will be discussing some of these things, but just a hint. Leaking, pain with intercourse, constipation, they're common and signs of pelvic floor dysfunction, but they're not normal.

And if you have something like endometriosis or PCOS, pelvic floor health is probably something you might have been forced to become familiar with sooner than most women. Thank Pelvic floor health, in my opinion, is essential, not only for fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond, but also to just live a vibrant life.

Keep listening to hear me and Dr. Kelly share everything you need to know about pelvic floor health. Enjoy the show. Hey Kelly, it's so nice to have you [00:02:00] on the podcast. Everyone, this is Dr. Kelly Samas. Yes. And everyone. 

[00:02:05] Kelly: Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:02:08] Loren: Yeah. I'm super excited to chat with you. First of all, because you are my pelvic floor PT, so 

[00:02:14] Kelly: yes, 

[00:02:16] Loren: I have learned so much from you and you have been such a big support to me throughout my whole basically preconception through pregnancy journey and which will very much be postpartum soon. 

[00:02:27] Kelly: Yes. It's so exciting. Such a beautiful thing. 

[00:02:31] Loren: It is. It is. And I'm grateful to practitioners like you that can support women through these different phases. So definitely really excited to have you here and to share your work with the world. So for those that aren't familiar with you. Uh, would you mind just sharing your story and how you, you know, you got into pelvic floor PT and what you're doing now?

[00:02:52] Kelly: Sure. So my entire personal journey in physical therapy started when I was an undergrad and I ended up tearing my ACL at my high school year. playing softball and didn't rehab well because, you know, I was a teenager and didn't really listen. And I had some complications with recovery and ended up continuing PT after starting my freshman year at Ohio university.

And I was initially pre med and then ended up falling in love with the process of physical therapy. And then just. really loved the concept of building more of a therapeutic alliance with patients and spending more time with a client along their wellness journey. And so I ended up making sure that I had all the prereqs for both medical school and physical therapy school.

And then ultimately decided that I wanted a more intimate setting with future patients. And so I applied to PT school and then probably about three to four years into my clinical experience, I had a flare of what would originally diagnosed as an SI joint pain. And I was training for the Chicago Marathon.

[00:04:00] I was having some of my colleagues treat me and nothing was really helping treatment wise. And then I started experiencing some pelvic floor dysfunction. Mine personally presented a. pain associated with penetrative activities. And that's what kind of catapulted me into pelvic health. So I ended up enrolling in my first course, not because I was interested in treating in the pelvic health arena.

I was more so in sports performance at that point, but I was on a self discovery mission of just trying to figure out what was going on in my own body. And that course. It showed me the link between the pelvis and the rest of the body, how the pelvis is literally the crossroads of human function, and I ended up continuing my studies and ultimately landed where I am today, which is in my own practice, and I specialize in treating pelvic health dysfunction, neuropathic pain, and sports performance.

[00:04:57] Loren: That's amazing. And, uh, you know, if I had a dime for every, you know, expert that I spoke to that kind of is doing what they're doing because of their own journeys.

[00:05:07] Kelly: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:05:08] Loren: Myself included. Yeah. But that is so cool. And so you really found healing. And, you know, I feel like you wouldn't really connect running to initially, you know, if you're not well educated on the subject, running to pelvic floor dysfunction.

[00:05:23] Kelly: No, most people don't connect athletics to pelvic floor dysfunction. And that's the bridge that we need to build is really the education. The understanding. Absolutely. We see it in the prenatal perinatal space for sure, but we see this. It's day to day in all genders, all ages. And so I'm super excited that we're bringing that to light today.

[00:05:49] Loren: Oh, absolutely. And so you healed yourself and now you are a healer. Yes. So cool. Yes. Well, just in case, you know, for those that aren't familiar with the pelvic floor. They might have heard of it. They might, you know, kind of think of Kegels when I think of pelvic floor, but we'll get into that. But, you know, for those that aren't familiar with the pelvic floor, can you break down what it is, where it is?

[00:06:17] Kelly: Absolutely. So I have my model sitting next to me. So the pelvic floor is just a group of muscles, ligaments, and connective tissues. It sits at the bottom of our pelvis, right? So the bony basin is the pelvis and the pelvic floor are all of those tissues right at the bottom of it. They play a massive role in how our core functions, how we function as humans, as well as how our bladder, bowel, and sexual systems.

function. So a lot of times in the industry, you'll hear about the five S's as it relates to the functions of the pelvic floor. Those five, the first is support, meaning the pelvic floor supports our abdominal pelvic organs, like the bladder, the bowel, the uterus, et cetera. The second is stability. So the pelvic floor is really the bottom of what we call our core canister.

The top is the diaphragm. The front is the abdominal wall. The back is our mid to low back stabilizers and posterior chain. And then the bottom is the pelvic floor. And all of those parts have to work synergistically together to really help provide our functional stability. The third S gets us into more of like what we think about with pelvic health is sphincteric.

And so the pelvic floor plays this massive role in maintaining continence, both of urine and feces. So when there's disruption in the system, it can look like urinary or fecal incontinence. I would also add that it can also look like Any altered state of the bladder and bowel, not just the continence mechanism and it's how those systems are kind of functioning together.

It absolutely impacts leakage, but clinically it can look like hesitancy or interruptions and voiding. It can look like pain with voiding, constipation, et cetera, like lots of different presentations there. The 4th s that we're looking at, Is looking at that sump pump mechanism, right? So meaning that our pelvic floor plays this really big role in our lymphatic system.

So it acts as this beautiful shunting mechanism to help with overall lymphatic transit, blood flow just throughout the body. Fifth is our sexual system. So the pelvic floor plays a massive, massive role in our sexual health. And that's something that I think. Society wise, we have a hard time talking about probably the sexual and then bladder and bowel functions are the three biggies that don't get discussed enough.

[00:09:00] And so realistically, if you think about like globally, those five S's are what the pelvic floor's role is. But it's more than that because the pelvic floor sits in that bony basin of the pelvis and the pelvis in general is the crossroads of human function. It dictates our posture. It's where load transfer happens.

It's where force attenuation happens in just daily movements. So more or less the pelvis and the pelvic floor are just integral in how we move and how we function on a day to day basis

[00:09:24] Loren: Yeah. Thanks for breaking that down. I love the S's. If you could call that an analogy, I'm not sure if that's the right term,

[00:09:32] Kelly:  yeah, it's just an easy way to kind of understand all of its roles.

[00:09:36] Loren: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I like to think about it as is it's like the epicenter of creation as well. 

[00:09:54] Kelly: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:09:55] Loren: Yeah. So it's just like, there's just so much power in this complex of organs and bones and ligaments and tissues. I, it's amazing.

[00:10:00] Kelly:. I would agree the power of the pelvis. It can not be underestimated. Not at all.

[00:10:05] Loren: Ah I love it, you’ll have to start using that in your training sessions 

[00:10:20] Kelly: I need like, I need like a bumper sticker, I think, or something. Maybe a hat. 

[00:10:25] Loren: Yes. A hat. Yes. Well, thanks again for breaking that down. I guess the next question would probably be because, okay, so you have a pelvis and this is what it is and what it does. How can you tell if you're pelvic floor is doing okay, like normal or not so good, because I think there are probably a lot of things that we would consider normal, but they're actually common, not normal, if that makes sense.

[00:10:51] Kelly: Correct. It's a, it's a phrase that you hear a lot in the industry, especially from pelvic health physical therapist, because we see so many patients come in with different types of complaints across the board.

So realistically, if there's ever a disruption in sexual function, bladder function, bowel function, that's pretty indicative that. some things out of balance within the pelvis, within the core canister when we're trying to identify. In other facets, like when things are not in balance, there are a couple of things that we hear a lot in our subjective reports from clients and things to kind of look for one is the most obvious, and that's if you're experiencing urinary or bowel incontinence or leakage at any point in your day.

And this is where that, especially in the postpartum and pregnancy arena, you hear, Oh yeah, that's normal. It's normal to leak after baby. No, it's not. It's not ever normal to pee your pants. Like that's just ridiculous.

[00:12:00] It's common to see that disruption in the pregnancy and postpartum arena, but it's very treatable.

And I think that's the message that's missed is that common, but treatable. And so that's one of the biggest things I think we treat in the pelvic health space and. For some reason, it's surprising to a lot of our patients, like, well, why didn't I know about this earlier? You know, I was having coffee with my girlfriends and they all leak too.

And it's like, well, here's my card. Let's get everybody in here. Nobody should be peeing their pants. So that's one of the biggest things that we can look for and it's a very obvious one. Otherwise, when we think of dysfunction, Do you have pain? Whether that's low back, deep hip, pelvic pain, pain is just a signal telling us that something's off in the body.

That can include pain before, during, or after bowel movements. Bladder [00:13:00] elimination and sexual intercourse. So those are the three kind of the arenas that we don't always think, Oh, I have pain with this activity. I should go see a physical therapist. Usually, if you have pain with that activity, you're going to see a medical doctor of sorts.

Like you might be going to see urology, urogynecology, colorectal, maybe even just mental health practitioners, but there's a huge. Neuromotor component or neuromuscular component to all three of those activities. So that might be indicative that you need to get a baseline with a pelvic health physical therapist.

Other of my clients will explain the sensation of heaviness or like a foreign body sensation in the pelvis or just difficulty with their sport or recreation activity or playing with their kids or day to day movement. So if you see things like doming or coning in the abdominal wall or just an altered strategy of how your core coordinates as it relates to movement.

That might be a good time to get into see a pelvic health PT. Does it feel hard to breathe during those movements and during exercise? The diaphragm is a huge component of A lot of what we do because of its influence on the pelvic floor. So just looking at some of those more obvious leakage, pain, difficulty with bowel, bladder, sexual function, heaviness, or any just altered movement strategy, that's kind of telling you that there's something that's just not in balance.

[00:14:35] Loren: Well, thank you for telling us the truth. Yeah. You know, I think it's very easy to poke fun at these things and it's almost, I don't know, part of like some kind of initiation. 

[00:14:49] Kelly: Yeah, it's a terrible initiation. 

[00:14:53] Loren: And I can't help but think about this sign that my mother in law had in her bathroom when I first started dating my husband and it said, I laughed so hard, tears ran down my leg.

[00:15:05] Kelly: Oh my goodness. Yes. Oh no. You're like, here's, here's some information if you need it just in case, because you can start pelvic floor PT at any age. It's never too late. It's never too late to start. 

[00:15:22] Loren: Yes. And I think that's another really important thing to get across is because, you know, just because you didn't maybe even know about these things prior to pregnancy, during pregnancy and your postpartum and you're, you're kind of like, Oh, it's your, your time has not passed. You can work on it now, even if you're, you know, Well past your childbearing years. It’s a great time. 

[00:15:41] Kelly: 30 years postpartum. Like, you're never not postpartum after bearing children. Like, even if it's 30 to 50 years later. Like, it's still, our bodies are so resilient. And our tissues are so resilient. We have this plasticity in our body to be able to, to create shift.

And I think that that is like one of the most powerful things. And it's never too late to really start to see a shift or desire a shift in the body. And so that's why I get that question a lot on like phone consults. Yeah. But you know, my. oldest is 40. My youngest is 35. Okay, can you really help me? Like, of course, our bodies, our tissues are so resilient. So anytime is a good time to start. 

[00:16:36] Loren: I love that. And I think about that in my work as well in regards to fertility, it's never too late to start. You're not broken. You know, it's There's, it's always a good time, honestly. 

[00:16:47] Kelly: Yeah, it's always a good time. 

[00:16:49] Loren: Well, I know we talked about some of the most common signs of pelvic floor dysfunction.

Are there any that are not so unexpected or really sneaky that might actually surprise those of you listening? 

[00:17:03] Kelly: Yeah, I would say, I mean, that athletic arena is a big one. And so in the athletic arena, we see a lot of persistent pain presentations or recurring injuries. And that's a sign that something, especially in our, like center, our core canister is off.

And I think a lot of the athletes that I treat, I'm not the first human that they come to see. I'm probably like the 12th human that they come to see. And we start talking through. The core canister, how it coordinates, how it impacts breath, how that impacts performance, how the pelvic floor plays a massive role in performance.

And all of a sudden they're like, wait, So this like hip pain that I've had, that could be not actually my hip. That could be the pelvic floor. It's like, we will find out, but it could be so those like persistent pain conditions. It can look like low back, lower abdominal, deep hip. And it's a lot of my patients will.

Point to the hip and they're like like it's in here. It's like it is it's it's in there. It's in the pelvis That's where it's actually originating from so in those like persistent pain or recurring injury That's like that sneaky sign the other would be the fact that certain pelvic floor dysfunctions have been normalized like you said before and Society just goes.

Oh, yeah, that's normal And especially in certain populations, pregnancy and postpartum being one of those. And so it gets kind of sneaky only because we've been told over and over and over that it's almost to be expected. Yeah, yeah, that's normal. You just had a baby. Oh yeah, sex is painful. You just had a baby.

My least favorite thing to hear from a client is when they've gone to see their medical provider. express that they have any of these dysfunctions and they kind of get poo pooed with, yeah, well, you just had a baby that's normal. And so it's tough because that's hard to navigate. You have a respected healthcare clinician telling you, you're fine.

Quit complaining. And That's absolutely not how it should be, so it gets sneaky only because of what we've been told, especially in the perinatal space. 

[00:19:28] Loren: Hi, it's Loren. If you're trying to conceive now or in the near future, it's probably clear by now that you need to work on your pelvic floor. Learn how to assess your pelvic floor.

Both strengthen and relax it, do kegels the right way, properly engage your pelvic floor during exercise and labor and delivery, how to use tools to support your pelvic floor, and so much more in my e course, Conscious Conception. This is a key aspect of actually preparing your body to carry your baby in the womb and recovering quickly once they're here in your arms.

Learn more about how you can optimize your pelvic floor for pregnancy at innatefertility.org/getpregnant. And if you're loving this show, don't forget to leave a review. Now back to the episode.

[00:19:43] Loren: I love that. And thanks for clarifying that. And again, telling the truth. One of the things that I really like to help my clients and students work through is advocating for themselves and listening to their intuition.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. If you, if you feel like something's off, listen to that and, you know, find someone who will listen to you and actually walk you through a reasonable assessment of it. Not just brush you off saying, Oh yeah, well you're, you're young. So, you know, or, or, you know, you just had a baby or, you know, you're 40 now, so this is what you should expect.

[00:20:54] Kelly: Right. Like it's not okay. It's not okay. Not in any scenario. And furthermore, if you go in and express a concern, especially like one of returning to intercourse, like that intimacy with your partner, and your health care provider tells you to just have a glass of wine and relax, find yourself a new health care provider.

Alcohol should never be the answer to any of this stuff. And for some reason, that is a recommendation that is just Utilize so freely. And it blows my mind. It's so dismissive. And it's really it. That's one of the things that it is just a trigger for me as a provider. Like in any other scenario, if someone comes in with a health care complaint, are we prescribing alcohol?

No. So let's not do that. with our postpartum moms. Let's do better. Let's be better here. So 

[00:21:54] Loren: I love that. That is just so true. And yeah, that's basically what they're doing is prescribing alcohol

[00:21:59] Kelly: yes. I hear it all the time. Yes.

[00:22:04] Loren: There are much better solutions as Dr. Kelly is going to share. Yes. Definitely, you know, keep listening to your intuition and maintain that because as soon as you lose it, it becomes harder to get back to.

It absolutely does. Yeah. So I guess for pregnancy, let's go back to that topic. Yeah. I'm wondering, a lot is talked about postpartum, but I'm more curious too, right now, how can your pelvic health and pelvic floor health impact your ability to get pregnant? 

[00:22:38] Kelly: Oh, that's a great question. I don't know if we have enough evidence to say that there's a direct correlation in regards to the health of the pelvic floor and its impact on fertility.

And obviously that can be a very sensitive subject for some, but I think what we can acknowledge is that fertility is multifactorial, and the pelvic floor being in such close proximity to our fertility center. could potentially impact someone's ability to become pregnant. That might simply be due to imbalance in that system, which is leading to pain associated with penetrative activities, which is keeping someone from engaging in intercourse to become pregnant.

So it could be something as simple as, it's just, it's not possible to engage in intercourse to even try to conceive. But as it relates to more of the overall health of the tissues in the pelvis, I don't know if we have enough to say that there's a direct correlation, but I do think that our body functions more optimally when there is balance and health in the tissues.

So it couldn't hurt to have a baseline pelvic floor assessment when you're considering trying to conceive, just to see where your body is, just to see what those tissues, like where they are, what type of balance you have. 

[00:24:05] Loren: Thank you for sharing that. I think. You know, we'll only time I'll only tell, yeah, because I feel like there's just so much being connected even in these past few years.

Also in regards to vagal tone and pelvic health. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Reproductive disorders like endometriosis and PCOS and pelvic health and vagal tone as well. 

[00:24:28] Kelly: Yes. I mean, we treat all of these disorders in the pelvic health arena. So it's kind of that. Indirect correlation a bit only until there's some sort of evidence that emerges to say, yeah, here it is.

Like, this is our connection. This is what we know, and this is how we can approach it best for each human. 

[00:24:48] Loren: Yeah. I love that. And I think we'll see that for sure. I do too. 

[00:24:53] Kelly: Yeah, I'd agree.

[00:24:54] Loren: Well, awesome. And. In pregnancy, so moving from the before pregnancy to the pregnancy phase, how much pelvic floor work should women really be doing? Uh, is it really that important during pregnancy?

[00:25:08] Kelly: Oh, I think it's wildly important. I mean, you know this. You know me. Knowing how to self manage the transitions that your body will inevitably go through during pregnancy is empowering. I mean, let's be honest. You can't fix problems. That you don't understand.

You also can't fix problems that you have a hard time talking about. For some reason, we still see that it's somewhat taboo for people to discuss bladder, bowel, sexual health, and it shouldn't be. We should be educated on our bodies in any stage of life. We should understand what's normal versus abnormal, because those abnormal presentations are likely very, very treatable.

Understanding the typical shifts that we see in our bodies during pregnancy is empowering, because we know that we can create balance, and we're capable of doing that at each stage of gestation. To just ensure that we're... Maintaining our function and that that the functions optimal. So educating on things that sometimes are and sometimes aren't preventable, like diastasis, potential birth injury, potential prolapse, et cetera.

It's not meant to scare people. It's meant to educate. To help them navigate how to minimize the risk and how to manage those possible disruptions. And ultimately it's to lower the level of disappointment and shame that we see oftentimes when these things occur. And so in pregnancy, we can go through all of this education about expectation.

Here's what we know. Here's how the body transitions. Here are the typical imbalances that we see in the muscles simply because of where the feet is.

[00:27:00] Is simply because of the growing abdomen and here's what you can do to mitigate any sort of fallout to decrease pain, to keep functioning optimally. And then as we get closer to actual delivery, we talk about labor and delivery strategies.

breath strategies, softening, perineal prep, different positions that are available for birth. And we really try to ensure that not only that human feels empowered, but their support system also feels empowered. So oftentimes towards the end, we do visits with your partner. Here's how you can support your partner during labor and delivery.

Here are the things that you can do to help advocate when maybe being able to self advocate is going to be a little bit challenging when you're in that labor and delivery process. And so I really, I don't think we can know enough about the pelvic floor, especially as it relates to pregnancy. And so I think it is very Very important for each pregnant human to, to have some education on just expectations.

[00:28:13] Loren: Really, I think that's very well said, and your passion for this topic definitely shines through. And I feel that in your work as your patient. And so thank you for that. I do agree. It's, it just makes so much difference. And women that I've worked with that have done no pelvic floor work, and then They do it for their second pregnancy or like it's completely different.

You heal so much faster and just the shifts that they've noticed, they're 

[00:28:44] Kelly: mind blowing. You understand it. There's power in understanding what your body's going through and there's power in understanding how you can support your body through those changes. 

[00:28:58] Loren: Couldn't agree more. Well, let's shift back to postpartum.

Oh, yeah. We talked quite a bit about it. And I feel like pelvic floor is synonymous with postpartum because that's when we get, honestly, that's when we get exposed to it. We're like, what this existed before. 

[00:29:12] Kelly: Right. I just, I just passed a human through that muscle group.

[00:29:19] Loren: Exactly. And so, you know, labor and delivery are over. Does pelvic health really matter at that point though? You know, can you, can you tell us the truth there too?

[00:29:28] Kelly: I love this question because no matter how you shake it, pregnancy and delivery are two of the most dramatic events the human body can undergo.

The transitions are wild, affecting every single system in our body. But for some reason, the postpartum body is almost forgotten as soon as that beautiful little baby arrives earth side. And it simply doesn't make sense, right? The body has gone through this beautiful, amazing endeavor for months, and then goes through a certain degree of trauma during the labor and delivery process, sometimes a very small controlled trauma, sometimes a larger trauma, regardless of the type of delivery. Regardless if it was a vaginal delivery or cesarean.

But regardless, those tissues have been put to the test, and we don't always acknowledge that. After any trauma, our tissues need support. As individuals navigating our new bodies, we need support. We need guidance on healing, restoring movement strategy, and just feeling safe in our bodies again. And not all humans know exactly how to navigate that postpartum process.

And that's where practitioner support can come into play, including pelvic health PT. 

[00:30:46] Loren: I think that is so beautifully said. And there are so many nuggets there. It's just, you know, I feel like. And it speaks to a lot of what women go through to postpartum. It's just like, you hear these sayings, like everyone was so sweet when I was pregnant and, you know, until I delivered them and then they forgot about me.

Yeah. It's all about the baby. And yeah, no, it's exciting. The baby's there and you know, you have a new human to welcome to your family and your life and to your friend groups and everything like that. But you know, I think that the care that women need. And traditionally we're given to, you know, however many years ago.

Yes. It is, uh, quite forgotten. And so pelvic floor health and, you know, seeing a pelvic floor PT is just one of those, I think personally, foundational things that anyone who has gone through birth should be doing.

[00:31:40] Kelly: We say that a lot in our courses that we teach, that no matter what, every postpartum human should have at least, at the very least, a single visit with a pelvic health practitioner, even if it's just for education, even if it's just to understand those shifts and those transitions, but that's just not how our society is structured.

And. It's amazing to me still, even with the shift, there's been a pretty positive shift of talking about pelvic health, but there's still this huge disconnect. And there's still so many out there that don't know that it exists. And so that's what I would love to see. shift even further, like pelvic health for everyone.

If you have had a child get in, get an assessment and just kind of see where your body is. Ask the questions, ask the hard questions. I have a lot of very interesting conversations in my practice and They just give me life, you know, because you're likely the first provider that those questions have been asked to honestly discussed with and I just think there's so much value in that 

[00:33:02] Loren: 100 percent and even if pelvic health isn't on the docket of your standard of care, people that you're seeing postpartum or even during your pregnancy, definitely, just because it's not being offered immediately, you can still advocate for yourself to go get that done.

It's totally worth it and you can set your own standard of care. So yeah, absolutely. It'll pay dividends and um, give yourself your epicenter of creation, your core canister, that extra love because yes, you will reap the rewards. 

[00:33:35] Kelly: Absolutely.

[00:33:37] Loren: Now kind of flipping that. I would love to talk about pelvic health for males because of course I think this can also be a standard of care for men as well. And so are there any benefits to pelvic floor work for them too?

[00:33:52] Kelly: Absolutely. All genders have a pelvic floor. Anyone at any age. Has a pelvic floor. It shouldn't have been removed at any point. And so I actually see, I probably see about 50, 50 at this point, male, female for pelvic floor dysfunction, and it functions just the same in the male population as it does the female population.

And so we have the same roles, the same functions. And so a lot of times with my male clients, I'm seeing more of that sports performance related. I see a lot of cyclists with like saddle pain and just like all your saddle sports that create this pelvic pain and different presentations. And that journey is actually quite tough for men because they're not as well versed with the pelvic floor.

I think as females were exposed to it a little bit sooner with gynecologic visits, starting at menses. And so we have a little bit more experience with it where. Men, it's, it's a lot of times, one of the questions, wait, so, so I have all that too? You're like, yeah, yeah, you sure do. And it functions in your body the same way as it does in your female counterpart.

And so there's a lot of value for our males. What it looks like clinically is. The same pain syndromes for men, it looks like penile pain, scrotal pain, testicular pain can look like bladder, bowel, sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction. Those are all the types of diagnoses that I see as a clinician in the pelvic health arena for my male patients.

[00:35:32] Loren: That's great to know. So for anyone, if you are a man listening, And you are dealing with any of these things, if any lights are going off at light bulbs, you know, definitely go seek out a pelvic floor PT, but also for any women dealing with maybe their partners are dealing with these things and you're trying to support them through.

And it can be a really sensitive topic. And I appreciate the delicacy that you navigated that answer with, of course. But yeah, it can be, it can be really embarrassing to talk about these things as a man and I find this as well in my practice, helping men with their fertility. You know, it can be a lot more of a guarded conversation.

So just even putting this out there. Without any pressure and just letting them know this exists, they can go seek it on their own and get that help that they may not have known that they needed. Yeah. Well, awesome. So I know that you also specialize in needlework. 

[00:36:32] Kelly: I do. Yes. Yes. 

[00:36:35] Loren: Can you explain how this works and how it can enhance the work that you do on the pelvic floor?

[00:36:40] Kelly: Of course. 

[00:36:42] Kelly: So dry needling has been near and dear to my practice for the past, probably 12 years, and we've, we've learned more. It evolves every year. And the evolution is really beautiful because we're seeing the impact that this type of intervention can have on the tissues. And really one of the biggest things that dry needling does is it provides a tissue reset.

So when a tissue is out of balance, so we consider that like a homeostatic balance, when it's not there, it's living in this dysfunctional state. And the dry needling can help to essentially reset that tissue back to better homeostatic balance. It can provide blood flow, which means we're getting nutrition to that tissue.

It can help decrease abnormal tone. So a tissue that's maybe been disrupted in this kind of guarded and tight, it can help it to relax, to get back to that balance on the same side, like kind of opposite side of the spectrum though. In the tissue that's very low tone and having a hard time recruiting, it can help with that recruitment as well.

So it can kind of create that shift back to homeostasis just via that tissue reset. So as it relates to the pelvic floor, we know that. Especially pregnancy postpartum, that pelvic floor goes through tissue disruption. And a lot of times it ends up in that guarded state, like kind of that tight, high tone guarded state, which means it's not functioning.

Well, any muscle that's not in a good balance is not going to be able to recruit. Well, it won't be strong. It'll feel you'll have that sensation of weakness in that tissue. And That needling can really help to reset that so that we can recruit better, we can feel stronger, we can start to see a decrease in some of these dysfunctions like incontinence, prolapse, same can be said for the abdominal wall.

And that gets put on stretch for a long period of time. And anytime we have an insult to the tissue, there's a certain degree of denervation that happens, meaning the nerve that feeds it, it kind of shuts down a little bit.

[00:39:00] So when we're in this postpartum state then and going, I'm trying to restore my core, I'm trying to get that back on.

I want that gap to close and I can't feel it. I feel like I can't find it. Sometimes the needling can help us just. Find it again. It helps to restore that neuromuscular circuit, and so I'll use something called electrical stimulation or neuromodulation for that to where we utilize the needle plus electrical stimulation to retrain the actual muscle contraction.

And then once we remove the needles, it's much easier for the patient to find it. On the back end to really start to optimize how those muscles are functioning. That is so cool.

[00:39:42] Loren: Oh, it's awesome. Uh, mind muscle connection. So I kind of want to break down a couple of things. So the dry needling helps with the mind muscle connection, resetting that, especially postpartum when things maybe are a little further apart, spatially, neurologically, and I also wanted to highlight what you said too, which is balance, not being overly tight or overly lax or, you know, because what you said is that that leads to weakness.

Yes. And so the balance is really important. I think this is a really important shift too, for a lot of women who have been conditioned to think that Kegels are the only thing that they should be doing for pelvic floor health.

[00:40:25] Kelly: Yes. It's tough because the body lends towards protection. In pregnancy and postpartum and a lot of times what protection looks like for the public floor is tightness the spasm.

And so it's holding, and so it's a little counterintuitive once you like kind of break it down that way to then go, oh, well, so what should I do? Well, we probably shouldn't be just tightening and already tight muscle group. We need balance. We need to know, yes, that contraction is absolutely imperative to how we function, but we also need to be able to release as well.

And lengthen and find that like really great homeostatic balance to optimize strength, recruitment and function of the pelvic floor. 

[00:41:13] Loren: Amazing. Yes. I love it. They're both very important and You know, I think that if you are trying to work on your pelvic floor and you've only been doing kegels, just think about that.

[00:41:26] Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Breath work, find the balance, add in some diaphragm breathing to those kegels and it might change your life. 

[00:41:36] Loren: Yes. Love me some diaphragm breathing. It's good. It's good stuff. Well, Dr. Kelly, this has been a wonderful conversation. Those are all my questions, but I do have one more and that is, you know, I ask everyone this when they come on the podcast and because it's called the innate wisdom podcast, I just have to do it.

So yeah, I'd love to know what's one thing that you would like to share with the audience that they can start doing today to unlock more of the innate wisdom of their body. 

[00:42:07] Kelly: Oh, that's a good one. I think one of the best things we can do is identify what we need, practice some self awareness, and then respond to that through self expression and self care.

It's okay to want help. It's okay to want to understand what's going on with your body. It's okay to want to optimize your wellness and your function to be the best version of yourself. That's not selfish. It's okay to advocate for your wellness, even if your birth team doesn't always have the same agenda.

So identify what it is that you need, express that to your support humans, and then allow yourself that self care to get what you need in any stage of life's journey. That's so 

[00:42:51] Loren: beautiful. Thank you for that. I love that message and I think it's so important. Well, last question. I promise. How can people find you and support you? 

[00:43:05] Kelly: Yeah. So you can find me on my website. So my website is holistic pelvic health. org. On there. There are plenty ways to get ahold of me. Um, I'm also, that's my handle on Instagram. So I have a lot of clients who reach out via direct message or my email is on my website.

And so if you have questions about where you are, if this is the right fit, or even if you're not in the local. state of Colorado. And if there's somebody who practices similarly in your region, feel free to reach out. There are a lot of resources in terms of finding a practitioner close to you and really just finding somebody who speaks your language when you're on your wellness journey.

[00:43:50] Loren: I love that. Well, go give Dr. Kelly a follow and go check her resources out for sure. And again, thank you, Dr. Kelly, so much for your time and sharing your wisdom. It's been a pleasure. 

[00:44:01] Kelly: Thank you so much for having me. This was amazing.

[00:44:08] Loren: Thank you so much for listening to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share the podcast with someone who you think might benefit. If you're new here, we can't recommend enough that you take advantage of my free resources like the Get Pregnant Yesterday Checklist, Psycho Literacy Guide, Prenatal Primer and Sperm Booster Manual.

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