Biofeedback - any advice or experience?

[White Falcon]

I am considering biofeedback with a PT. My concern is the sticky pads and hair in the area. What do you do about that?! I don't need any more pain! Anyone have any advice or experience with this? Thanks!

[JeanieC]

White Falcon,

The biofeedback that I had done for pelvic muscle dysfunction was done with a vaginal probe, or a rectal probe could be used.
One therapist did use a sticky pad on my abdominal muscles, but you don't have to worry about sticky pads being placed on hair!

[nyt]

Word of caution about biofeedback. If you have hypercontracted and shorted pelvic floor muscles you DO NOT want to do contractions as you will make matters worse. However, if you have weak non-hypercontracted muscles then doing contractions is fine. If you have hypercontracted, shortened muscles the PT may want you to do a few contractions just to see what the contractions look like and how quickly you relax but other than that don't do contractions. You can use biofeedback with hypercontracted and shortened pelvic floor muscles by just practicing to relax them. Your baseline would be higher than normal and may look like a city landscape instead of nice and smooth. What you would do is practice deep breathing to bring your base line down to a lower level and to smooth out the city landscape appearance to a flat line. They might have you do what is called a "reverse Kegel". You breathe out slowly while gentle relaxing the pelvic floor with a little pushing sensation. Like when you are passing gas and want to be quiet about it because you are in the grocery store .

The link below gives some good information on hypertonic pelvic floor and how to do reverse kegel.

http://www.prematurej.com/reverse-kegel-exercise

[helenlegs 11]

From an article I read recently nyt's word of caution makes perfect sense. Here it is http://www.pelvicpainrehab.com/blog/201 ... and-e-stim

[White Falcon]

Thanks for your responses.

JeanieC - the PT is spoke with said that she places sticky pads on either side of the perineum. She mentioned the probe, but I think she said that it's no longer being made - but I might be remembering that wrong.

NYT & Helenlegs- great articles - thanks.

After having such constant pain and inactivity for 3 years now, I don't know what's going on with my muscles down there. I really can't tell if I'm tightening or contracting. It's bizarre. Luckily, I'm not incontinent. From the articles, I think I am so hypertonic that I can't relax at all, because I have pain, but not incontinence. I have read books on PT for pelvic pain (ie, Amy Stein's, etc), but the main exercise they recommend (pelvic drop or reverse kegel or letting go), I can't seem to do.

And with the potential for any course of action to make things worse, it's really hard to know what to do next....