Heal Pelvic Pain

A Proven Stretching, Strengthening, and Nutrition Program for Relieving Pain, Incontinence, IBS, and Other Symptoms Without SurgeryBy AMY STEIN

McGraw-Hill

Copyright © 2009 Amy Stein
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-154656-0

Contents

Chapter One

AT THE BODY'S CORE

Copyright © 2009 by Amy Stein. Click here for terms of use.

Say good-bye to your pelvic pain.

No matter how much it hurts, no matter how long you've suffered, no matter how many different pills you've taken or treatments you've undergone, the program in this book can help alleviate your pain or disorder and start the healing.

No drugs, no surgery. Instead, this is a program of natural healng—of exercises, massage, nutrition, and self-care therapies that will focus on the true underlying condition of your pain. Heal the condition, and your symptoms will go away—and that's just what the program in this book can help you achieve.

To start, I'll explain what pelvic floor disorder is, why doctors have trouble diagnosing it, why you may have had so much trouble treating it so far, and how you can feel better as quickly as possible.

The first thing you should know is that you are not alone. Of course, nobody likes to talk about bladder problems or painful sex or itching or burning in the genital region, so you may not hear or read much about pelvic floor disorders. But the truth is that millions of us suffer from these disorders—women and men, athletes and couch potatoes, young and old, even children.

Mostly, it's women who suffer. As I write this, 9.2 million women have pelvic floor disorder but don't know it because it has not been properly diagnosed. And the sad fact is that if you're a woman, you have at least a 5 percent chance of suffering chronic pelvic pain.

But your pain right now is what counts. That's why you're reading this book. You may be one of the more than 30 million women who have irritable bowel syndrome or one of the 700,000 with the urinary frequency, urgency, and pain that are collectively referred to as painful bladder syndrome or interstitial cystitis.

Maybe you suffer some form of incontinence, especially if you gave birth recently or exercise frequently.

Maybe you have some form of sexual dysfunction; 43 percent of women do. Pain during intercourse, performance problems, and declines in sexual response and enjoyment are all more common than you think. All can adversely affect your relationship with your partner. And all can be treated with the natural healing program in this book.

THE PELVIC FLOOR

What is the pelvic floor? Take a look at the figures. The pelvic floor is all the muscles, plus the nerves controlling the muscles, plus the tissues—called fascia—that connect everything together, plus the ligaments that link bone to bone and bone to organ that are attached to the front, back, and sides of the pelvis, from the pubic bone in the front of the body all the way back to the tailbone. These muscles, nerves, tissues, and ligaments sheathe the floor of the pelvis and together act like a sling or hammock to support the pelvic organs—the urinary tract, digestive tract, and reproductive organs—including the bladder, the uterus (or in men, the prostate), and the colon.

This is an essential part of your body's core, the center of gravity in your frame, the place where movement originates—in a sense, the seat of raw power in your body. Eastern religions attribute spiritual as well as physical significance to this part of the body, seeing it as the place where the vital energy of your life force resides.

In much of Hindu tradition, it is the coiled serpent of Kundalini, waiting to be awakened into energy. In Chinese culture, the pelvic floor is the home of ITLχITL, the life energy that must flow freely in our bodies in order for us to remain healthy. In Japanese martial arts, it is the hara, the vital center of the self—located just three fingers below the navel and three fingers inward toward the spine. The recognition of this vital life force is at the heart of spiritual practice in these traditions, and it is the focus of the physical exercises that invariably accompany such practices.

Western scientific research confirms that a strong and healthy pelvic floor at the core is essential to overall health and fitness. It's critical to feeling good. It's key to that sense of physical vigor that is so important to your sense of well-being.

THE MUSCLES OF THE PELVIC FLOOR

All the muscles of the pelvic floor work together to support the pelvic organs and to assist in bladder, bowel, and sexual function and with trunk stability and mobility. But each muscle also has its specific individual role.

As shown in Figures 1.3 and 1.4, the pelvic floor has two parts. The upper part (lightly shaded) comprises the superficial layers of the pelvic floor. The muscles here constitute the urogenital diaphragm, also known as the urogenital triangle because, as you can see, the muscles form a triangle. These muscles are the bulbocavernosus, ischiocavernosus, and the transverse perineum, all of which assist in orgasm and bladder control in both men and women.

The lower (darker-shaded) part of the pelvic floor, sometimes called the anal triangle contains all the other muscles of the pelvic floor, all of which are found in the deep layers of the pelvic sling. These muscles include the levator ani, the urethral and anal sphincters, and the coccygeus, piriformis, and obturator internus.

The levator ani muscle moves the coccyx or tailbone. It is made up of the pubococcygeus (an important muscle that assists in orgasm in men and women), the puborectalis, and the iliococcygeus (see Figures 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5). You won't see the puborectalis labeled in the illustrations because it is located beneath the pubococcygeus muscle. Both muscles originate at the pubic bone. The pubococcygeus attaches to the coccyx bone, or tailbone, and the puborectalis wraps around the rectum. The puborectalis assists in bowel emptying; therefore, if the puborectalis is tight or spasmed, this might result in incomplete or difficult bowel emptying.

The urethral and anal sphincter muscles assist in bladder and bowel function in men and women.

The obturator internus, coccygeus, and piriformis all work together but have slightly different roles (see Figure 1.5). The obturator internus is also a hip rotator and is the conduit for a very important nerve, the pudendal nerve, that helps control a great deal of pelvic floor function. A dysfunction in the obturator internus can therefore result in a slew of problems. The coccygeus muscle assists the levator ani muscles in moving the coccyx bone or tail-bone when the muscles are contracted. The piriformis, like the obturator internus, is also a hip rotator.

Experts in evolution theorize that the pelvic floor musculature once controlled the tails of our apelike ancestors, before hands proved to be more effective. Eventually, the use of hands naturally selected a new branch of evolutionary development. In that new branch, which eventually became us, the tails went away, but the muscles remained. Now, however, instead of controlling wagging and hanging from trees, the muscles took on the function of helping to support the body's core. So today, the evolved pelvic floor serves three vital purposes:

• It upholds and cushions the organs within the pelvis and lower abdomen: urinary organs, digestive organs, and...