If you’ve ever dealt with sciatica, the very mention of it may give you the chills. It can be rough and nearly mind-bending discomfort –– or you could experience it as “tingling” or “tightness” that comes and goes. I would describe sciatica as symptoms radiating down the back of the glute, thigh, lower leg and foot. This is a gross oversimplification, but at least it embraces many of the phenomena that would qualify as stemming from your sciatic nerve. If you’re like most people, you’ll probably either let it go and think it’ll eventually go away on its own, or you’ll make one of the common mistakes below. Unfortunately, these mistakes can land you in a heap of trouble and you may find your life becomes more limited in the process. Take a look and see if you may be making these mistakes:

As a physical therapist and movement specialist, I treat from a holistic approach focusing beyond physical injury. This means that I consider other variables contributing to pain and healing potential including sleep patterns, nutrition, occupational hazards, and possible stressors. This recognition of the complexity of pain and injury led me to seek additional education by becoming a yoga teacher to serve as a way to teach the connection of the mind and the body. This connection is made stronger by having a strong practice in learning how to breathe.

“You don’t even look like you had a baby!” people say, as if it is the ultimate compliment a postpartum woman could receive. After growing a human being for 9 months, our goal is supposed to be to “bounce back” after giving birth as soon as possible. Wait for clearance at your 6 week follow-up, and you should be able to go back to your favorite bootcamp class and lose the rest of that baby weight, right?

“What do you think about chiropractors?” is definitely on the top ten list of questions that I get as a physical therapist. It’s a loaded question because physical therapists and chiropractors are often seen as competitors, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The truth is that working with other healthcare providers that offer complementary services can be powerful in helping clients reach their goals. When I find a good chiropractor or massage therapist, I don’t hesitate to tell my clients about them. This is why I’m excited to introduce Dr. Jill Driver, a local chiropractor who provides innovative care with our friends at Pierce Chiropractic.

As a physical therapist, I often hear from my clients, “I sit at a desk all day and I know I have horrible posture. That’s probably why my neck hurts, right?”. This idea generally comes from social media posts, posture “corrector” gadgets, and posture being the historical blame for every neck and back issue if you have a desk job. But here is the kicker — there is no perfect posture. That’s right, I said it. And this is what I reiterate to my physical therapy clients time and time again to break the negative cycle about posture being the cause of their pain.

Yoga is a centuries-old practice but oftentimes, teachers have not adapted the style of teaching to reflect the demands of modern day life. If we take a critical lens to the demands of the modern worker, we see more sitting, phone use, and overall sedentary lifestyle than ever before. These prolonged postures have an effect on our muscles and posture in a way that we may not be aware of when we walk into a yoga class.

Are you going stir crazy at home during this COVID-19 pandemic? We recommend these tips and measures to keep you going strong, and to prepare your body for other, more strenuous physical activities.

I recently gave birth to my 1st child and was blown away that no one actually prepared me for the 2nd stage of labor, aka pushing phase, 10 cm dilation to birth. My husband and I went to several classes to prepare us for our newborn. During these classes they discussed the stages of labor, what tools they could use during labor, reasons for a c-section, joys and challenges of pregnancy, and how to breathe during the first stage of labor to make it through contractions. When I actually went through my 2nd stage of labor, I realized no one ever discussed how to push and breathe during this phase.

This article contains sexual content intended for a mature audience. Inserting a tampon is painful. You dread pelvic exams because they hurt. When you have sex it burns and stings. Does this sound familiar? Painful sexual intercourse can be due to a lot of reasons; one of those being vulvodynia.

There can be many reasons why someone has abdominal pain. Internal organs, such as your small intestine, colon, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, uterus or ovaries, could be causing your symptoms.