How long until I get better with pelvic PT?

Finding Pelvic Sanity

It’s a question we get asked at PelvicSanity all the time - ‘how long before I’m better?’

The answer? It depends. But let’s dive deeper and discuss some of the factors that make pelvic floor physical therapy so complex and what you can expect. We’ll also give you some takeaways to think about when you’re in pelvic PT.

One of the reasons we don’t know is there are so many variables that affect how long it takes to improve with pelvic floor dysfunction. These include both what’s going on with your body and what’s going on with you as an individual.

These include (but aren’t limited to):

• The severity of your current symptoms
• How long your current symptoms have been present
• How long pelvic floor dysfunction has been ‘brewing’ in your history
• How much your nervous system is involved
• Your willingness to make lifestyle changes
• Your capacity to commit to treatment and your support system
• Whether you have a history of trauma
• Your baseline health and age
• What other practitioners you’re working with
• The skill of your pelvic PT (they aren’t all created equal!)

With that, it’s very difficult to know how long things will take until we really start working with you and seeing how your body responds. However, a few takeaways for you:

1. This will be variable, but you should have great communication with your pelvic PT. They should answer your questions, not be defensive and not blame you for not improving….but they also likely won’t give you an exact answer to a question that isn’t knowable upfront.
2. See a difference in 3-5 visits. This isn’t necessarily even an improvement or a wholesale change, but certainly a difference in your body, how you’re feeling or at least some of your symptoms.
3. It’s likely longer than you’re expecting/hoping. Most patients are discharged too early, before they’ve truly found lasting relief of symptoms. We need to ‘find the why’ and make sure symptoms go away, stay away and that you can manage on your own. That process takes time - but when you go through it, the changes last!

Finding Pelvic Sanity Group
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About Us
Dr. Nicole and Jesse Cozean are the founders of PelvicSanity Physical Therapy (www.pelvicsanity.com) in Southern California. The clinic has helped thousands of patients in the Orange County, CA area and hundreds from around the world with a remote consultation and Out of Town Program.
They co-authored The IC Solution and Nicole created The IC Roadmap online course to provide the most accurate, up-to-date information for those with interstitial cystitis. They run the Finding Pelvic Sanity Facebook group for a supportive online community for anyone dealing with pelvic health issues.
Nicole has also created courses and trained thousands of pelvic PTs to provide better care through her work with Pelvic PT Rising (www.pelvicptrising.com).

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And as always, we hope this has helped you find just a bit of pelvic sanity!