Episode 1: Demystifying pelvic floor therapy and managing anxiety as a new mom

Kayla: Welcome, Brooke. I’m so glad that you’re able to join me today. I want to introduce you first, but how has your morning been?

Brooke: It’s been very busy here at the clinic. I have been doing a ton of marketing. So answering emails, going out and about rushing here and rushing there. So, yeah, marketing is a whole job in itself.

Kayla: I know. So before we get started, I want to introduce you. This is Brooke Baker. She is a pelvic floor therapist and works at Origin based out of San Antonio, Texas. She’s a mom to a rambunctious 17 month old and her perfectionism in her career and personal life really began to butt heads once she became a mom and something had to give. And dealing with her own postpartum struggles really complicated her ability to balance all of these responsibilities.

And speaking of balance, Brooke, what is your definition of a balanced life?

Brooke: So first, I just want to say thank you for having me. This is really exciting. I’m excited to be able to talk about my motherhood journey. Hopefully it will help some mothers out there to kind of help find resources and maybe my definition of balance will be helpful. I don’t know.

So for me, I feel like My definition has very much changed. Since I’ve become a mom, you’d asked me three years ago what the definition was. It would have been completely different.

For me now being a mom, being a full, like working full time as a pelvic floor therapist. And then of course, you know, trying to be healthy and do all the things. I would say that I’ve learned through my, Okay. It’s postpartum experience, really, that I kind of had to let go of control of a lot of things.

And so for me, balance means kind of just going with the flow as much as you can accepting things as they come. And realizing that you can put however much energy you want into each bucket, and it doesn’t have to be 100%. And one versus the other. It doesn’t even have to be a set percentage.

It can just be today, I want to put, you know, you know, some energy here, some energy there. It can be fluid. It can change. It doesn’t have to stay the same. And I think that that is the biggest thing I’ve taken away from this motherhood thing is you kind of just have to. Kind of just have to let things go, you know,

Kayla: yeah, I mean, because I’ve seen it even in myself and with other moms and other women that I’ve worked with is the belief of balance is like. Giving equal percent of yourself to everything. And that’s just impossible.

So I love that you brought up that it, you get to choose how much of your energy and your time that you’re giving to these specific things. And those, you know, that can change based on what, whatever is going on in your life.

Brooke: Absolutely.

Kayla: At what point did you realize? that your definition needed to change? Like what, what like was your light bulb moment?

Brooke: So for me, I had a pretty rough postpartum journey. I was dealing with depression, anxiety, and rage all at the very beginning. That after going to talk therapy I, they helped me understand that a lot of. My feelings were centered around my issues with breastfeeding.

I was having a hard time with that because again, I was a perfectionist and this is what I chose that I wanted to do. And so struggling through that. And then of course all of the other struggles as well but realizing that anxiety stemmed from, or at least this is what my therapist told me, was usually stemming from my needing to control things.

And so kind of relinquishing control over things has, so anyways, beginning of my postpartum journey really early on, I think I started going to talk therapy like week two, because I was in a really bad place.

And so definitely then is when I, it was very early that I realized that I needed to transition my way of thinking. And once I did that, honestly, like so many things opened up for me emotionally, just a lot more space for, for things in my mind.

Kayla: That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I know sharing about postpartum journeys can be really difficult because it. Puts us in a vulnerable place, admitting that we were not maybe living the way we wanted to, and it, and it being because of the way we were looking at ourselves and what we thought that we, we had to give as moms.

Brooke: Yeah, going back to kind of who I was as a person before again, perfectionist, like I wanted to portray a that I had my life together all the time. So being vulnerable, I that wasn’t like something that I did, you know, unless it was with somebody that I really felt close to. And I don’t trust that many people in my life, even still, I think but I think That postpartum journey and becoming a mom. I mean, there’s no more vulnerable experience I think you can have in life.

Kayla: No, there isn’t

Brooke: I mean, so yeah, it was kind of like my therapist was like, you know, babies are basically, they just get like, they’re like little bombs that get dropped into your life and like control goes out the window.

Kayla: Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s such a funny what is it, what is it called? Like image. Cause they are, babies are just like dropped in your life and no matter how prepared you are, no matter how many books you’ve read, it’s always like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing?

Even if you have multiple children, I have three kids and each one of them, although it did feel like a slightly bit easier was just like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? How am I? Going to navigate this now that I have not just one, but two, and then again, three. So it’s always not for yet.

Brooke: Yeah, but yeah, it’s, it is, it does feel like a bomb.

Kayla: Yeah, and I’m sure your definition of balance changes with each one.

Brooke: Yeah, it does it and it did.

Kayla: Yeah. And so after you were talking about how, she said it was this bomb and that you had to relinquish control. What, how did you get yourself to do that?

Brooke: I think honestly, like it’s something that I knew even before I had a kid that I had, I had, I was dealing with some level of anxiety at all times. And then of course, depression was always pretty situational for me. Going through grad school was really tough, but just realizing that like, once I started talk therapy and after feeling like I was, I mean, even just after the first two sessions, it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders because it was like, okay. Someone hears me. Someone understands me. I’m not as crazy as I think I am.

So it allows me to be vulnerable. And so with, with her at least. So her making me realize that most of the issues that I was experiencing had to do with. The way I was thinking and processing things is how I was able to do that.

So again, pretty early on, and it was not like a, it was not like a complete 180. It did, my feelings were like a complete 180. It was a very empowering experience. I was like, wow. Relinquishing control actually gave me more control over my, the way I feel, you know it was a choice that I could make.

And I was able to, okay, go with the flow. I feel, and I would feel so much better than like being upset that something didn’t go the way that I had planned or feeling out of control.

Kayla: Yeah. And you brought up a lot of like amazing points one being that. Because you had brought up, like, you had, you dealt with, like, situational depression and anxiety was, you felt like was always kind of part of your life.

And a lot of people don’t realize that those things kind of come hand in hand, especially when you are dealing with perfectionism or see yourself as needing to be a perfectionist, because you get so anxious that maybe things start to pile up, and then because things start to pile up, You start becoming depressed because you can’t get to those things that you want to do.

So it’s almost like cyclical and they, they come hand in hand together. And it’s not that you will only have one or the other. They can be, you can have them at the same time.

Brooke: Yeah.

Kayla: And then the other point that I want to highlight too, is that it wasn’t a one 80. And when we’re working through these things, it’s never going to be a one 80. Because these are patterns that we’ve built throughout our lifetime and, but going into these, going into like therapy sessions. Will be helpful if you go in there with an open mind and willing to bring up this stuff.

Like willing to trust your therapist and build that connection with them so that you can work through these things because it sounded like it really did work for you pretty early on.

Brooke: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was gonna say something off of that. Going to talk therapy was helpful for me, because I knew I was also dealing with rage, postpartum rage, and I’d always had anger issues I think kind of throughout my life but just exemplified, obviously with the hormonal things that were happening postpartum.

So going in and like. Finding out what my triggers were so that I, I knew kind of either how to avoid or recognize and so that I could like stop for a second and think was really helpful. And it was really helpful to sit down in front of somebody and have it like be kind of a guided session.

And an unbiased person too, was really helpful because, like, your mind is just, like, going, going, going, and it’s, it’s all over the place, and so you know, like, what you should do and what you, but it’s really helpful to have somebody else that maybe isn’t going through exactly what you’re going through in that moment, and they can kind of slow things down for you and, like, I don’t know, make it more linear, I guess, or just breaking things down. It really helped a lot.

Kayla: Yeah, absolutely. And. That was another thing, too. You had mentioned, like, you didn’t feel like you could really trust anyone and when, when people feel that way, that is one thing you can work on in therapy is building your trust with your therapist was going to help you learn to trust the other people in your life.

And it sounds like that’s exactly what happened for you. Being able to trust her, that you’ll be able to yeah. Be vulnerable in the office and like let her know or him know the things that you worked on that need to, that you needed to work on and they were able to help you through those things.

Brooke: Yeah, definitely.

Kayla: So again, I really appreciate you opening up, especially about like the anchor stuff. It’s, it can be embarrassing, like admitting some of these things. But when we talk about these on the open, it just makes it easier to swallow that we’ve done these things because I’ve had my own like run into with anger I’m, I’m embarrassed to talk about it sometimes.

Like one time I was, this was after I had given birth to my son was maybe a year old and I was trying to fix this old printer that I had from college. And I could not. And I just got so mad. I went outside and threw it. Like I threw it off our porch and I came inside and my husband looked at me like, well, he was not my husband at the time. He was my boyfriend. He was like, what happened? Are you okay? I’m like. No, I’m not. Okay.

And so that was a huge moment for me where like, I, I cannot, I cannot do that. Like, that’s not okay. I need to figure out how to manage this because I can’t throw other things in other places. Luckily, like it was, it ended up being fine. I didn’t need the printer. It was broken. It was from college. It was super old.

But yeah, those things, when we talk about these things, We can get through them, like, as women, going through these struggles. Because when we bury these and hide them, then they just fester within ourselves.

Brooke: Yeah. And I mean, you can get away with that for so long. Like again, before I was a mom, it was like, okay, you know, my husband, he was supportive. You know, he didn’t always like the way I was reacting to things, but he wasn’t really saying much. He was just kind of always there to support me.

But when you have a kid, it’s so different. You’re like this little human is watching every single thing I do. I need to figure out how to emotionally regulate so that I can teach another human how to do the same because that was, that was honestly, like. Once I got through the initial, like, I need help, like I’m going off a cliff, you know once through that initial experience, it was more, it’s, it transitioned more from the postpartum into more like working on me as a person and kind of things that I should have been working on before I became a mom. And so yeah, that’s awesome.

Kayla: Yeah. I mean, therapy does that, right? You go in for one thing and then you realize Oh. I probably should work on this too.

Brooke: Yeah.

Kayla: And if you have a great therapist, that will happen like that is going to be something to experience because it’s usually not the one issue you’re going through. There’s usually a root issue that needs to be worked through.

Brooke: Yeah, again, it’s sometimes it’s those moments where you’re like, Okay, I’m just putting that under the rug for another time. And then eventually you’ve done that so much that you finally just need to get by.

Kayla: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So tell us, tell me more or tell us more, right? Tell us more about your work in pelvic floor therapy, because I know that that’s something it’s still becoming, I guess, not popular, but known, like people are, I feel like there’s still a lot of women who, who don’t really know what going to a pelvic floor therapist can help with, because at least for me, I’ve never been given A recommendation for a pelvic floor therapist.

I mean, I don’t even know if I would have needed to but one thing I had recently found out it’s not normal to pee a little bit after you give birth, but that it’s very common.

Brooke: Yes. Yes.

Brooke: So kind of a little background on like what I do and how I got here. So I am a physical therapist. I knew probably since like high school that I was interested in the pelvic floor. Okay. Not to say that I knew exactly. All there was to know about it. I was also in that category of like, Oh, yeah, just do Kegel. Not true, by the way. Found that out later.

So I did a rotation in grad school. And then I didn’t want to dive right into a niche right away. So I did acute care. So I worked in the hospital when I first graduated. And then when I got pregnant with my son acute care became very hard on my body. It was really hard to lift people out of the bed as I got more pregnant. And I was like, well, this is the best time, I guess, to make that transition. So now I’m here I’ve been doing pelvic floor therapy for about two years now.

And so I feel like… The biggest thing that we love is educating and, and awareness about the pelvic floor. What is it? What symptoms to look out for? Why is it important?

So I mean, specifically to moms, of course, like your body goes through, I mean, not that we like to think of, you know, pregnancy and childbirth as trauma, but it’s kind of traumatic to your body.

Kayla: Yeah. I would say that it’s trauma within your body like your your body is going through a very big event. So I think that’s an absolutely perfect word to use.

Brooke: Yeah. So you know, we love to see moms while they’re pregnant. Even before they’re thinking of getting pregnant just to get screened. A lot of it is just like educational body mechanics and pressure management. And then we do a lot of birth prep here as well.

Yeah. Especially if your goal is to have a vaginal birth, we help kind of prep the tissues and go through positioning for different laboring and, and delivering positions. So that’s really nice. That’s kind of more in the preparatory phase, preventative phase. So you can look at it that way as well.

Postpartum, a lot of things that moms tend to experience constipation, bladder leakage, prolapse obviously aches and pains because they just had, This big belly and now it’s gone and their body’s adjusting. So there’s all kinds of different things that they could experience.

And I would say Again, common, but not normal. It’s something that, a lot of women will just live with because they’ve heard, Oh, that’s normal after you have a baby. And you know, you have this child and you’re so happy to have them that you’re like, Oh, it’s fine. You know, like, well, you’re busy for one. So you’re like, well, I don’t have time to address that anyways. But also you’re like, Yes, you destroyed my pelvic floor, but I love you so much. And that’s just what it is, you know,

Kayla: yeah.

Brooke: And that doesn’t have to be true. So we love to see mom’s postpartum to address any concerns. Another one that’s very common is painful intercourse. Especially if you had tearing or some kind of other complication in birth.

It’s, it’s definitely helpful to get assessed for that because yes, I would say it’s probably pretty normal to be a little uncomfortable when you’re at your six week mark, right? Things are still healing.

Kayla: Oh, yeah.

Brooke: But like, after that, if you’re still experiencing some discomfort, pain even just weird sensations, maybe you’re not able to reach orgasm either. Maybe it feels different. Maybe it’s not just painful, but it feels different and it’s not the same. Those are things that we can address too.

Kayla: Oh, that’s really good to know. Yeah. So at what point would someone be like, I should probably see a pelvic floor therapist? You had mentioned, like. It’s not normal to pee, so if you’re peeing a little bit after pregnancy, that’s probably a sign. And then also the pain during intercourse.

Are there other signs that I should probably see a pelvic floor therapist? Like, this is something that they can help me with versus going to another provider.

Brooke: Yeah. So another thing we see commonly is like vaginal dryness especially with the hormonal changes and in breastfeeding, especially again, mentioned like constipation, but also like abdominal separation.

So if you’re feeling like that weakness in your core, or you’re noticing that doming, when you go to do like a sit up, you’re getting in and out of bed that is another thing that we definitely want to address to limit, you know, A hernia in the future, and again, teach better pressure management to avoid those things in the meantime.

Kayla: Okay. And that’s called what?

Brooke: Diasis. Diastasis recti, yeah.

Kayla: Okay. Okay. D r A for short was like, I think I say it wrong. I think I say it wrong.

Brooke: Yeah, diastasis recti or d r A for short.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: Yeah. So to answer your question about When should someone see a pelvic floor therapist? If, if it’s not surrounding birth or pregnancy I would say really there’s, there’s no wrong answer.

If you’re having issues with bowels constipation, leakage, not being able to hold back gas. Those things aren’t normal. Especially, especially if you like to exercise, right? People are like, yeah, I leak, but only when I’m jumping or, you know, and I might fart during an exercise, but that’s normal. No, it doesn’t have to be normal.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: Yeah, yeah. So that kind of stuff. But specifically with postpartum moms, we would love to see, like, doctors start to make it a part of their routine plan of care and kind of standardize it. You know, hey, you just had a baby. I want you to go see a pelvic floor therapist.

And that’s not to say that, You’re always going to be a perfect candidate, but it allows us to assess, you know, the whole body. And, and we take everything into consideration. We’re physical therapists, right? So we look at everything but we do specialize in the pelvic floor. So, you know, it could be anything that’s contributing to any of the symptoms that they’re experiencing. So we like to look at everything.

So we would love to see. Anyone postpartum just to kind of kind of screen them and see.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: And if they’re fine, that’s great. Right?

Kayla: Oh, yeah. I mean, I agree. Like, it. It would be awesome because the, like, the doctors aren’t really looking at those things, or they might not know what to look for. So just having this. Even if it’s preventative, right? Instead of waiting till later when things are more of a problem that y’all could catch.

Brooke: Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I also kind of want to mention some of these other countries, like the European countries, it is standard of care. They’re getting sent to a pelvic floor therapist after every birth.

Kayla: Oh, that’s crazy. It always blows my mind, even though I know that we’re usually behind on caring for moms and caring for women. And I hate it. But that’s why I really wanted to have you on because I, this is something people like, this is something moms and women need to hear about.

Brooke: Mm hmm. Well, and we, we kind of talked about it before. The company that I’m working with now is origin and it’s a woman owned established company. It was two women who were dealing with their own public floor dysfunction. One after giving birth and then the other had been dealing with painful intercourse for, I think, about 10 years before, you know, people were, she was going doctor to doctor and nobody was helping her.

And so Her friend. So they were friends who had just had the baby. She was like, okay, my husband has a painful shoulder and he’s getting better care than I am after going through this very traumatic birthing experience. And she, she found a pelvic floor therapist, things went really well. And they were like, Okay. Why did I not know about this sooner?

This could have saved me so much time and, and, you know, struggle and so they came together and they were like, okay, we need to increase access and awareness to, to women and those with vaginal anatomy across all of the U S. So that’s their mission and that’s what they’re doing there. They’re expanding now into all the different states and stuff.

Kayla: Yeah. So do you know off the top of your head or if you have information like in front of you, where what states origins located in?

Brooke: Yeah. So they, they’re out of California. Then they came here to Texas. So they’re in Austin, San Antonio, now Houston. They just opened up in Atlanta. They are in Georgia. And then they just opened up in Portland, Oregon.

Kayla: That’s amazing. That just means that the, the word is spreading about the importance of pelvic floor health too.

Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. And then I’d also like to mention to they offer virtual care across the nation. So there are certain things that you don’t always have to have hands on sometimes.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: What we see is a lot of education and building awareness. Of course, we would love to see you in person and get hands on and maybe that’s new plan for eventually, but sometimes it’s just nice to do a check in and have someone to talk to and some guidance, which is. Especially helpful postpartum and they do have a six week postpartum care program that is specific to postpartum moms and we can see them early.

Like again, we don’t do hands on or internal assessments until at least six weeks or they’ve been cleared by their doctor. But if they’re wanting like earlier support, I mean, as early as two weeks, they can get on with a virtual therapist. And just get gentle guidance, you know, gentle exercises, like when you start to recoup. So that’s helpful.

And they can always transition at any time. They can go back and forth. They can do a hybrid of virtual and in person. So depending on where they live, if that option is available, of course.

Kayla: Okay. So are there certain things that would be like more appropriate, or not more appropriate, but like, it would be okay for someone to reach out for virtual appointments?

Brooke: Honestly, really anything.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: Because again, a lot of it is education. So I mean, even, you know, they see a lot of like the diastasis recti they can see online. I mean, there’s a lot of

Kayla: that’s true. Yeah. With video. Yeah. It’s very obvious. If you have the diastasis recti, it’s very obvious.

Brooke: Yeah, and you know, they talk you through, I mean, you can do a self assessment of your pelvic floor muscles. They talk you through that. They can have you go through a self assessment of your, your abdominals. And so if At any time they feel like it is beyond what they can manage virtually, they help locate somewhere for you to conveniently go in person to follow up.

Kayla: Oh, so that’s awesome. So it’s not just like a place where you can get treatment, but if there is not an origin in your area and they can’t treat you virtually, they’re, they’re going to take the time to give you a referral to someone near you.

Brooke: Yeah. We, we are, you know, we know other, we know therapists kind of all over. So I would hope that whoever you’re seeing virtually is going to help you find someone close to you.

Kayla: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. Are y’all a smaller group like pelvic floor therapist. Is there still like not that many of y’all?

Brooke: Yeah, they’re, Oh, where did I see that? They actually had statistics. Origin did. What did they put that on? Geez, you’re asking hard questions now.

No, there, there are definitely like, there is a huge need for pelvic floor therapists everywhere, right? That’s one reason why they went big with the virtual. That was one of the reasons why they did virtual is because their mission was to increase access to care.

You know, all of their locations are in these big markets, right? Like all these big cities, but what about all the other people who are hours outside of these big cities? And so for example, I have a patient right now who travels two and a half hours to see me.

I’m working in virtual appointments with her that I feel, you know, if it’s going to be a lot of talking or I’m going to be doing a lot of demonstration then I will have her in the comfort of her home and not having to drive a five hour round trip to see me.

Kayla: Yeah, no, I get it. I mean where I am from, to my knowledge, I do not believe that there is anyone that’s a public floor therapist here. I’m in Del Rio, Texas, so it’s a small rural town and it is two and a half hours away from San Antonio. So that would be if someone here wanted to do that, they would be driving that far.

Brooke: Yeah, so we’ll throw, we’ll throw that number into the show notes along with like the information on how to get in contact with you and other origin offices in the area.

Kayla: That sounds perfect, yeah. Yeah, so you said that when you were in high school, that’s when you were, you were intrigued by the pelvic floor. What intrigued you about it?

Brooke: Okay, so I actually really wanted to be like an OBGYN.

Kayla: Okay.

Brooke: Because I loved reproductive health.

Kayla: Mm-hmm.

Brooke: I thought it was so interesting how like the women’s body can do what it can do.

Kayla: Yeah. It’s amazing.

Brooke: I also had an interest in like, just sexual, like health in general. So I was like, Perfect. Like those can go hand in hand. But then I realized I didn’t want to go to school for, you know, 12 to 15 years. And I knew I wanted to be a mom. And so I was like, that’s going to be my priority.

And I don’t want to, I don’t want to be on call all the time. And you know, so it was kind of weighing, you know, those options. And then I also didn’t want to be, you know, responsible for making those like life and death decisions. And that just wasn’t for me. And so I was like, That’s not for me.

So what can I do? That is still kind of in that realm. And I, I did want to also be a physical therapist. And then I realized that they had a specialty in pelvic health. And I was like, that’s it. Like,

Kayla: yeah, yeah. And I mean, you, you, you still can treat like sexual problems too.

Brooke: Yeah. Actually, one of my favorite things to treat sexual dysfunction. That was worse. You know, those with a history of trauma. I do also like working with them as well.

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. And if you’re questioning anyone listening, this questioning, why would that be so fun treating sexual dysfunction? Because it’s amazing when people have never experienced like pleasure in, in intercourse It is amazing to see the changes because you should be able to experience pleasure when you’re having sex when you’re having intercourse.

And if you’re not, something is wrong. And it may be physical. It may be. It may be something mental health emotional.

Brooke: Yes. And so I also like working with people who are, you know, struggling in the bedroom too.

Kayla: Yeah it’s just such a big part of life, you know, and if you’re not enjoying that aspect, if you’re wanting to, right, if you have the desire to and you’re not able to, that is, that’s a problem it can really cause a lot of issues mentally, if that’s something that you’re wanting to protect and you can’t.

Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. So I will say to we, we do like to see people that deal with infertility and you know, some of that could be from like endometriosis or PCOS we can do to address that.

But also, what some people don’t, I mean, the people going through it now, but a lot of people don’t realize that there are also people out there that would love to have a baby, but they just can’t intercourse is so painful that they can’t tolerate. And so love working with people like that as well.

Kayla: Yeah. So if you’re listening and you are having pain during intercourse, please go seek out help from pelvic floor therapist, because. Again, like, sex should be pleasurable, intercourse should be pleasurable, and it should not be something that you dread.

Brooke: Exactly. Yeah, it should not feel like a job.

Kayla: Yeah, it should be enjoyable. Yeah, and if… If sex feels like a job and it does feel good when you have it, then maybe you should seek out a therapist to help you with that part.

Brooke: I will say that, you know, I will say a lot of, you know, we, we treat, and this goes for anything, not just painful intercourse, it could be that they’re dealing with, you know, urinary urgency, frequency, bladder leakage. Constipation, a lot of those things actually lend more to a tight and hyperactive pelvic floor.

Going back to what I said at the beginning, you know, you think, Oh, just a few kegels and you’ll, you’ll be fine. And that’s not true. I would say the vast majority of the people that I see I think most PTs could say this most pelvic PTs could say this. that they are actually dealing with more hyperactivity, more tension, more tightness in the pelvic floor, as opposed to straight weakness.

So, and, and where does that come from? A lot of times it’s personality. I, I, I say this to almost all my patients, I hate stereotyping, right? Anything, but I feel like non pelvic floor dysfunction, I can stereotype a little bit.

So I see a lot of like personality, like type A personality dealing with a history of trauma anxiety, depression, people who just tend to hold tension. And so I like to say if you’re a jaw clencher your pelvic floor is also a clencher.

Kayla: Yeah. And if you notice that your jaw is clenched now, use this opportunity to relax those muscles.

Brooke: Yeah. And, and so my point there was I almost always have the discussion with my patients. Are you seeing somebody? Are you talking with somebody about managing your stress, about finding balance, right? Finding ways to relax and have you dealt with that?

Yeah. You know, I’ve, I’ve had. I’ve had patients that are like, you know, I think you’re right, you know, like I, I do have a history of trauma and didn’t realize how much it was impacting me until I came here and I realized, Oh, wow. Yeah, this is when this all started. And I just didn’t realize. But that’s what was happening.

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah.

Brooke: And so I love co treating. Well, my therapist, because if you don’t fix what’s going on up here, we are never fixed. What’s going on down there. Because it’s a huge mind body connection. We can throw literally every tool we have at the pelvic floor in the body, but if we’re not addressing the underlying issue, which is whatever you’re going through we’re never, we’re never going to get where we want to be.

Kayla: Yeah. I love it. You said that. The physical part, the, the tension in your physical body is not going to go anywhere until you release the emotional tension within yourself.

Brooke: Right. Because going back to even just the talk, the therapy, the talk we were having earlier about therapy you kind of develop these patterns and it takes time and effort and thought basically a lifestyle change in order to break the cycle, right? And so having someone to support you through that is so important. Because again, can get pretty chaotic up in here.

Kayla: It can. Yeah. Especially if you’re someone struggling with anxiety, like your thoughts will, will run. And so like figuring out how to manage those is going to be really helpful.

Brooke: Yeah. Yeah.

Kayla: So, yeah. But I appreciate you coming on. Is there anything else like you feel that Especially around the pelvic floor that women should look out for or pay attention to or any other Maybe myths that people say, Oh, no, that’s normal. That aren’t actually normal.

Brooke: Yeah, I’m trying to think. I You know, I feel like we touched on a lot of the big ones Again, going back to cables cables are not always the answer. Most of the time you need to relax your pelvic floor as opposed to contract. So I would say a lot of times I’m like I don’t even prescribe Kegels to a lot of people. It’s more down training and relaxation.

But as far as like myths I don’t know. I think this is about moms. Yeah. Okay. Nevermind. I was going to talk about like some of the men’s stuff, but we’re not going there.

Kayla: Okay. Well, I mean, we can a little bit if any moms and women on here notice something in their husband, they can be like, Hey, Maybe you should go see a public law therapist.

Brooke: Mm hmm. So yeah, I was going to say we do, we do also treat men. I can’t say that about Origin as a whole, right? They’re, they’re targeting women, but at least here in San Antonio myself and Rebecca, we both treat men.

And so. I would say like for them constipation, pelvic pain, men have all the same issues that women can have to urinary issues, whether that be they can’t empty their bladder all the way or they’re, they’re, yeah, another big one is like erectile dysfunction.

And so I was actually talking with a nurse practitioner the other day who does hormonal replacement therapy and she was talking to me. She’s like. You know, I have this really young guy, his T levels, they look really good, but I don’t know like what he’s going through. He says his desires there. And his T levels look great, but like halfway through he loses his erection. And I’m like, okay, to me, that sounds like. It could be muscular or, you know, okay, there it’s issue.

And so that’s definitely things that like we would love to address to but going back to women and myths, I think under the GI system is really underplayed. You know, a lot of the things that we experienced like The gas, the constipation, the straining, feeling like you have to strain to have a bowel movement is not normal.

Feeling like you have to strain to empty your bladder, not normal. Going to the bathroom 15 to 20 times a day, not normal. Waking up in the middle of the night unless you’re pregnant or you have a toddler. Right?

Kayla: Yeah.

Brooke: Not normal to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate. You know, if you’re

Kayla: What would be, like, normal in terms of the amount of times people wake up? Because I know that that is a big one, that people are like, Oh, well, I’m getting older and I have to wake up this many times a night.

Brooke: I would say there, there’s a statistic. I don’t remember the exact age, but it’s over like a, like, probably 50 years old, 45 to 50. I think we allow one time. Like, one time can be considered normal.

But typically when you’re When you’re young and you’re healthy, your bladder can hold a lot unless you’re chugging like Two whole bottles of water before bed. Okay. Sure. You’re going to get up and go to the bathroom. But if you’re like steadily drinking water and, you know, sleeping well, like you should be able to go through the night without having to get up.

Kayla: Wow. I bet I am like almost a hundred percent positive. Everyone that is listening to this mind is being blown right now. They like, you hear those things are like, oh, it’s really common to get up three, three times a night after you’re this age or, you know, and then it’s not like you, we should be able to hold it until we get up in the morning.

Brooke: And of course there’s other factors right at play that’s, that’s a generalization and not everyone falls into a general category but there’s usually other things going on too but. For the most part. Yeah, if you’re waking up three, four, five times a night, like let’s address that because first of all, it’s affecting your sleep. It’s affecting your mood. It’s affecting everything really.

Kayla: Yeah. During your day. Yeah. Yeah, it does because then you wake up and you’re like, Oh, I’m so tired because I had to wake up three times to pee.

Brooke: Yeah. Yeah.

Kayla: That’s awesome. I mean, it’s not awesome, but It’s just like, all this information is so helpful and I am like, I’m sure someone listening to this needed to hear it and is going to be reaching out to a pelvic floor therapist because they, they didn’t know that what they’re experiencing isn’t normal.

Brooke: Right. Yeah. And like, I hear a lot of times too with like urinary urgency frequency, people don’t go on road trips. They, you know, because they’re like, Oh, I’ll have to stop a bunch of times to go to the bathroom.

Okay. Well, that’s not normal either. You should be able to, depending on again, how much fluid you’re drinking, go anywhere between two to four to five hours. Again, depending on the amount of fluid.

But yes, you should be able to hold especially situationally, right? You should be able to dampen the urge a little bit to get to wherever you’re going. So if you’re feeling like you get the urge and you’re having to sprint to the bathroom or else you’re going to leak not normal, right? Like you should be able to dampen that enough to get you to a bathroom within 15 minutes or so, right? Not like right now.

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. But thank you so much, this is. This was awesome. This, like all the information you gave, I appreciate you taking the time to come on and chatting with us and educating us on both like your experience becoming a mom and then also your experience as a pelvic floor therapist.

Brooke: Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It was, it was good. And again, I love to educate. So if you or anyone ever has any questions, definitely don’t hesitate to reach out.

Kayla: Okay, and what’s the best way, so like if someone’s in San Antonio or maybe they just have a question about origin, what’s the best way to contact you?

Brooke: So we do have a, a phone number that they can call or they can go on the website, like we have a really great website with a ton of even free resources there’s also a quiz on there, so if you’re like, I’m sure if pelvic floor therapy is for you, you can take the quiz, answer the symptom questions, and based on how you answer, it’ll ask you more questions and determine whether you’re a candidate.

But as far as like getting scheduled we can put this in the show notes as well. The phone number 726 268 4459. And then the website is theoriginway. com. So they can schedule online or they can call to get scheduled.

Kayla: Okay. Yeah. We’ll definitely put that in the show notes. So if you’re driving, don’t try and write this down. You can write it later.

Brooke: Yeah. And so they can also What was I going to say? It had to do with oh, we have, we have bios online too. So I know that pelvic floor therapy can be a little taboo and people are unsure, right? They’re like, that sounds really intimate. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.

You can go online to the San Antonio page, Rebecca and I both have a bio on there. It goes for all the locations, not just San Antonio. But you can go on there, scroll to the bottom, and it’ll show the therapists and a little bit about them. So sometimes that’s helpful for people to kind of connect and know who they’re going to be working with.

And then they also have a helpful, like, FAQ page. So if you’re wondering what to expect or, you know, like, any of that stuff, that’s always really helpful as well.

Kayla: Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, and I hope you have a good rest of your day, Brooke.

Brooke: Thank you.