Back and Hip Pain
Pelvic Floor Therapy for Back and Hip Pain
About Back and Hip Pain
For many, pelvic floor physical therapy may seem limited to solving issues involving the bladder, bowels, or sexual organs. But did you know that your pelvic floor affects much more than that—including your hips and back?
Pelvic floor muscles are something that each and every person has. They provide essential elements of balance, stability, and support to your body. These muscles are located within the pelvis and are very close to or even connected to muscles and structures that control the hips and provide support to the upper half of your body.
The pelvic floor, pelvic girdle, hips, lower back, and entire pelvic area all contain intertwining structures (nerves, tissues, muscles, and more) and can, therefore, affect each other in unexpected ways!
When the structures involving your hips, spine, or tailbone are unaligned, it can cause pelvic floor dysfunction; which is weakness, tightness, inflexibility, or incoordination of your pelvic floor muscles. Vice versa, when you have pelvic floor dysfunction, it can affect your back, hips, tailbone, and other areas. This is because all of these areas are connected!
Because there are so many areas tied to the pelvic floor, pelvic floor dysfunction can actually present itself through a multitude of symptoms. The pain and symptoms experienced from pelvic floor dysfunction can be very similar to other causes, making it less obvious where the cause originates—but don’t completely rule out your pelvic floor.
Pelvic floor dysfunction can create the following symptoms:
- Pain in the hips, tailbone, groin, sit bones, or lower back
- Pain in the sacroiliac (SI) joint or pubic symphysis
- Tightness or aching in the hips
- Lessened mobility of the hips
- Vaginal, penile, testicular or rectal pain
- Urinary incontinence
- Urinary urgency
- Constipation
- Difficult bowel movements
- Diarrhea or fecal incontinence
- Pain with sex
- And much more
Although many people may not realize it, hip and lower back pain are often symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction, so it’s common to experience a combination of the above symptoms. While it may not feel or seem like pelvic floor dysfunction due to the location of your pain, it is important to understand that these areas and the pelvic floor are very connected.
The confusion likely stems from many sources only describing a few of the jobs that the pelvic floor actually does, outside of functions like urination, defecation, and sexual appreciation. But the pelvic floor does much more than that! It is a much more complex structure than people may realize. Let’s dive a little deeper!
Your pelvis has something called the obturator internus, which is a pelvic floor muscle that attaches to the hip. It is a very important muscle that allows movement and rotation of your hips. Yes, you read that correctly—a pelvic floor muscle that controls hip movement! Your physical therapist can even palpate it during an internal exam.
This muscle not only connects your pelvic floor to the hips, but also the sacrum (which is the lowest part of your back). Problems with this muscle can create pain and a variety of symptoms with many different areas of the pelvis and lower body—like the low back, buttocks, thighs, sit bones, and tailbone. It can create pain and other unideal symptoms at the perineum or anus.
Just like the symptoms described earlier, people who experience tightness, weakness, or other dysfunctions of the obturator internus will often experience urinary incontinence, constipation, and painful sex. Yes…inflexibility, tightness, or weakness of a muscle that controls your hip can actually cause urinary incontinence or constipation! If you have heard of things like “referred pain” before, this may not be a big surprise to you. But for many who are new to the pelvic floor, this could be something new!
This was only one simple example, but as you can see, this entire area of the body is very interconnected! Problems with one area affects the other, and vice versa. This can make your symptoms a little confusing. Therefore, if you have experienced back or hip pain, yet can’t seem to find relief from traditional physical therapy methods or exercises, you should definitely seek help from a pelvic floor therapist—as it is probable that you have a form of pelvic floor dysfunction.
Rest assured that Dr. Meihofer is a pelvic floor expert, and deeply understands all of these interconnections of your body’s muscles and structures. She can help identify the cause of your pain, and create a plan to fix it!
How Pelvic Floor Therapy Can Help
Your symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction will be addressed with a variety of treatments that are curated to your individual needs (every person’s pelvic floor health and needs will vary). As mentioned earlier, your pelvic floor can be too tight, too weak, inflexible, uncoordinated, or a combination of these. Dr. Meihofer will help you better understand your pelvic floor, where the problem lies, how these muscles work, and why they are causing your symptoms.
Oftentimes with hip and back pain, the muscles of the pelvic floor and surrounding areas are too tight—meaning they are too weak, as well. This causes stiffness, lessened range of motion, and pain. Tight and weak pelvic floor muscles also result in constipation, pelvic pain, and other symptoms mentioned earlier. To address these issues, Dr. Meihofer will work on relaxing these muscles, releasing tension, and rebuilding strength. She will help you learn to coordinate your pelvic floor more effectively, to help prevent tightness in the future.
In other cases, your muscles may not be tight, but still have areas of weakness, pain, inflexibility, and imbalance—which can create more pain and other symptoms like urinary incontinence. In this case, strengthening of the muscles will be necessary through a variety of treatments and exercises. Strengthening these muscles will encourage better support and stability of your hip and back structures, resulting in less pain and better mobility. Dr. Meihofer will also utilize treatments and exercises to help improve flexibility and decrease pain where necessary!
She will use a variety of treatments to help you achieve optimal pelvic health, such as manual therapy, biofeedback, neuromuscular re-education, exercise prescription, and more. Dr. Meihfoer will suggest behavioral modifications or lifestyle changes to help prevent future dysfunction or worsening of your current condition. This may involve working on your posture and even habits in the restroom!
Additionally, you can expect instruction and exercises to help manage your symptoms and continue your treatment even while at home.
Dr. Meihofer has worked with countless patients of all ages and gender identities. She has years of experience addressing pelvic floor dysfunction and a variety of symptoms, including back or hip pain.
She is an expert in all things pelvic floor, and works hard to not only make her patients feel welcome and comfortable, but also integrates education into her services so they can better understand their own bodies! You can learn more about Dr. Laura Meihofer on her bio page.
Dr. Laura Meihofer is an out-of-network provider and does not accept insurance including Medicaid or Medicare. You are responsible for full payment at the time of services. Documentation for out-of-network insurance benefits will be provided upon request.
Choose a Service That’s Best for You!
Dr. Meihofer’s pelvic floor physical therapy for back and hip pain can be provided in multiple ways! Explore Dr. Meihofer’s service options below to find one that best fits your health goals, availability, and needs.
You can choose to get started immediately by booking an in-person or telehealth evaluation, or have your questions answered with a free discovery call!
Conditions Related to Back and Hip Pain
Not seeing your specific condition or symptom here? No worries, Dr. Meihofer has experience with many different pelvic floor conditions! For questions regarding your unique case, you can schedule a free discovery call to see if pelvic floor therapy is right for you.
