TREATING PELVIC PAIN WITH GRADED EXPOSURE
How to change your belief from “it’s always going to hurt,” to “it might hurt, and if it does I know it won’t last forever and there are things I know to make it feel better.”
With pelvic pain, it may feel hard to show others where it hurts— even a health professional, awkward to talk about it with friends or someone you love, that your morals or faith will be questioned because of religious beliefs, or that the pain will never stop.
Dr. Sandy Hilton is a pain and pelvic health physical therapist currently in Chicago at Entropy Physiotherapy. Sandy works in the clinic and online to help people with pain recover and is an internationally invited speaker and instructor of other health professionals. Sandy teaches classes on manual therapy and sensory integration techniques that are purposefully non-painful and help recover tolerance to sitting, bike riding, sexual function, and more!
Dr. Sandy shares strategies to move through challenges with pelvic pain:
Using your imagination to identify what can trigger pain and how to unhook your thoughts from the pain
Using graded exposure (from sports psychologists and used in Olympic-level recovery strategies) to start doing something challenging again
Gaging your progress in relation to what else is happening in your life— a flareup doesn’t mean your progress is slipping away
Making it a priority to do something you love every single day
I love how Dr. Sandy reminds us that even though the pain can become the center of your life, life is not about dealing with the pain; managing pain is about how you approach living your life beyond the pain and making your happiness a priority.
You can learn more about Dr. Sandy’s new book Self-Care for Pelvic Pain: A Sensory Integration Toolkit here.
This information is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding treatment, medications/supplements, or any medical diagnoses. This information is intended for educational purposes only and is in no way to substitute the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.
