Bladder Pain: Reduce Symptoms with Acupuncture and Pelvic Floor Health

Bladder and Pelvic Pain:  Reduce Symptoms with Acupuncture and Pelvic Floor Health

There are many causes and types of pain that affect the bladder and pelvic region.  Interstitial cystitis or Bladder pain syndrome is a chronic, severely debilitating disease of the urinary bladder. Of unknown cause, it is characterized by pain associated with the bladder, pain associated with urination, urinary frequency (as often as every 10 minutes), urgency, and/or pressure in the bladder and/or pelvis. 

Acupuncture holds a special niche of alleviating symptoms of chronic pain and is a great alternative to pharmacological treatments.  Because pelvic pain is often a debilitating condition that has existed for several years, acupuncture should be received on a bi-weekly basis for a few weeks to start.  As symptoms reduce in severity and frequency, treatment will be spread out. 

Many patients receiving acupuncture for pelvic pain report improvement in voiding, decreased pain levels, and medically supervised reductions in medications and most narcotic analgesics. Energy levels, emotional symptoms, constipation, and sexual symptoms are also improved over the course of treatment.  Acupuncture treatment enables patients to return to a higher quality of life after many years of impediment.

Along with acupuncture, exercise to specifically address pelvic floor issues will help patients stay well after a course of treatment.  A 2008 study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 1 in 3 women have a pelvic floor disorder.  The women in this study were between the age of 28 and 85.  

Symptoms of PFD include:

• Urinary urgency, frequency, hesitancy, stopping and starting of urine stream, painful urination, or incomplete emptying
• Constipation, straining, pain with bowel movements
• Unexplained pain in the low back, pelvic region, genital area, or rectum
• Pain during or after intercourse, orgasm, or sexual stimulation
• Uncoordinated muscle contractions causing the pelvic floor muscles to spasm

Pharmaceuticals many times do not help this condition and can even worsen some symptoms.  Preventative and regularly practiced pelvic floor exercise are imperative to maintaining pelvic floor health and regaining balance in the area and also in women's lives.

The basics for pelvic floor health:

• First learn to relax pelvic floor.  Then strengthen.  The pelvic floor needs to be able to do both!
• Sit completely on toilet and relax to fully empty bladder and bowel. Do not strain.
  
• Avoid "just in case" emptying of bladder and consider "bladder training"
  
• When doing Keggels (squeezing the pelvic floor up), or other exercises, do not bulge abdominals.  Learn to hold them in.  Use this technique with all activities!

There is ALOT more to learn about our pelvic floors!  Click on the links below for more info:

 

Interstitial Cystitis Association

Dr. Andrew Siegel, a urologist, discusses pelvic floor muscle exercises

The Space to Create

I'm always going.  Or listening or reading.  Or doing.  I'm afraid to stop and think or more... to FEEL.  Eventually I finally do stop.  I schedule in some down time, unaware of the deep shifts and stirrings, the deep impact it will have on me.

I plan an escape from the city one weekend, just my daughter and I.  We arrive at our destination, each of us with a novel, a few birding guides, a mammal guide, some food, and a large bag of art supplies.  My daughter knows how to pack the essentials.
The first day, we sit around the empty house our friend has lent us.  We read and we eat.  We go for a walk.  Again, the essentials.  My daughter keeps me on track.  That night, we read ourselves to sleep - sweet and quiet dreams.  Morning wakes us and my mind is free and open to knowing we have another two day to do whatever we choose. We unravel a huge roll of white paper, pull out our pens, pencils and paint. 

Ahhh - open canvas.  A lack of destination, just space to roam without predetermined goals.  I remember this place, this stillness and I like it when I finally arrive.  My mind is free and able to float where it may.  Idle and putter... inefficiently beautiful.  We have a whole roll of paper to mark up and blunder upon and appreciate.  A whole roll to explore space, unencumbered by appointments, the internet, work, or school. 
We have found Mind Space.  Heart Space.  Emotional and Creative Space.  Thank you Mind Space, for showing up when I scheduled you.  I have missed you.

Finding this Space, my whole self opens to possibility that isn't foreseen by the set path I have been walking.  My boundaries fail and leave me aware of the vast landscape of creativity that always exists, silently waiting for us to come explore. Images dance around my head, do the jig and the hamster dance in my minds eye.  So much possibility when I find space for it.  I am lucky to be part of this human-ness.  To be curious and alive, creative and flawed, resilient and loving of what I do not know, what I cannot comprehend.

Eventually we roll up our paper, new and wild maps of possibility.  We tuck them under our arms and return to our time bound, information rich lives.  We make a fire in our back yard on our return to the city and burn our art.  We know there is always more to be made.  New things to discover and dream.  Letting go of what we have made, we make room for more.  We have faith that possibilities will show up when we create the space for them.



"The imagination needs moddling - long, inefficient happy idling, daudling, and puttering."
-  Brenda Veland

- may you find some time to moodle, doodle and daudle today -

Herbal Spotlight: Xiao Yao Wan

Xiao Yao Wan or Free and Easy Wanderer is one of the most famous herbal formulas available to help regulate your Liver, Gallbladder and Spleen Organ Systems, bringing about a balanced feeling of emotional and physical harmony.

The Liver and Spleen Organ Systems can be associated with a plethora of disharmonies such as: emotional outburst or anxiety, cold hands/feet, PMS, migraines, weak digestion/bloating, menstrual irregularities, stomach/back/rib pain, loss of appetite, low energy, eye problems, irregular elimination, decreased flexibility, headaches and neck and back tension just to list a few.

Xiao Yao Wan or Free and Easy Wanderer is an excellent formula to be taken for a week or two each month prior to a menstrual cycle with any irregularities as mentioned above. In many circumstances it would be a good idea to follow up with a post-menstrual tonic.  Ask me which formulas are appropriate for you!

Always speak to a licensed herbalist before taking any herbal medicines.

Painful Periods:  Acupuncture's Natural Relief

Many women believe that painful periods are something that they will always have to suffer through.  The most common western treatment is hormonal pharmaceuticals, such as birth control pills.  Not every women wants to be on the pill for years, due to concern over the long term use of hormone therapy.  Chinese medicine holds a wonderful niche here, relieving painful periods, regulating irregular periods and helping with accompanying symptomology. 

Acupuncture will help release stagnant energy in the body which causes many premenstrual and menstrual issues.  For this concern, acupuncture is given on a regular basis through a few menstrual cycles.  Most women will notice a lessening of symptoms with the first cycle, that will continue to increase with subsequent cycles.  You can continue to receive treatments on a monthly basis as a preventative measure a week or so before your period.