February is National Self-Check Month. Internal scarring (adhesions) in your pelvic region can occur throughout your life due to surgeries, accidents, and even natural wear and tear. This self-check month is meant for you to implement preventative health measures. These can include making better dietary choices, performing self-examinations, or going to a wellness visit with your physician to seek early treatment for symptoms associated with health problems.
What questions should you ask your physician during your wellness visit? Depending on what issues need to be resolved, physical therapy may be the treatment you need, particularly if you are experiencing illness, pain, and other health problems caused by adhesions.
How can you know if you have adhesion-related health problems? This article offers answers to these and other questions and makes a case for why you should ask your physician about physical therapy for adhesion-related conditions.
National Self-Check Month at Clear Passage®
National Self-Check Month raises awareness about the importance of taking proactive steps to prevent health problems and addressing existing health problems. One might imagine that preventing or addressing health problems would be easy, yet people avoid seeking medical care for many reasons. They may:
- Feel that they are too busy.
- Worry about the costs associated with care.
- Have unfavorable opinions about health care providers, or;
- Assume that symptoms will eventually improve without intervention.
No matter what it is, the truth is that avoiding medical care is not a good idea.
Lack of treatment, at best, can result in avoidable discomfort or suffering, and at worst, can result in late detection and treatment of a disease with severe or potentially deadly consequences.
Suppose you are experiencing illness, pain, or other health problems. In that case, it is crucial to advocate for yourself by seeking early treatment, not just any therapy, but customized solutions that are most likely to provide the best results. Doing so can result in the restoration of your body to its best possible condition or even complete relief and healing.
7 Questions You Should Ask Your Physician
During your wellness visit, your physician will review your family history of illness, your medical records, and vital signs, and perform an exam. Explain to your physician what habits you have regarding diet and exercise, sleep, and stress management.
Refer to this list of questions to help you get valuable feedback from your physician during your wellness visit. Be sure to jot down additional questions that come to mind as you continue reading this article.
- Based on your observations about my appearance, vital signs, and weight, what is your initial impression of my health?
- Ask for an explanation of your blood work results or other diagnostic test results, if available.
- Do you have any suggestions regarding my health habits?
- Am I prone to certain health risks based on my family history?
- Should I continue taking medications? Should the dosages be adjusted?
- Make a list of specific pains or other symptoms you may have experienced. Go through the list with your physician. Ask after each item, “Is this normal?”
- What treatment options are available for (fill in the blank)?
- Would I benefit from physical therapy for (fill in the blank)?
Surgery and/or Medication vs. Wurn Technique®’s Physical Therapy
Although surgery and medication play a vital part in healthcare, they come with risks and a long list of potential side effects. On the other hand, Physical therapy can provide effective, long-lasting results without the risks and side effects, especially for adhesion-related problems.
Demonstrated Positive Results With Physical Therapy
Studies from major medical journals, available from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), demonstrate the results of physical therapy using the Clear Passage® Approach®. This non-surgical treatment utilizes the Wurn (hands-on) adhesion release techniques for various conditions caused or exacerbated by adhesions. This landmark 10-year study and many others demonstrated how this specialized, hands-on physical therapy yielded pregnancy rates for women with PCOS, small bowel obstruction (SBO), and at rates similar to standard medical treatments but without surgery or pharmaceuticals.
A Deeper Look: What are Adhesions?
What are adhesions? Adhesions are a type of scar tissue that forms inside the body after an accident, fall, surgery, infection, inflammation, trauma, radiation therapy, or endometriosis. Since surgery to treat adhesions can cause more adhesions, it makes perfect sense to treat adhesions with physical therapy rather than surgery.
Many people associate physical therapy with treatment for injuries or range-of-motion issues, and rightly so, because physicians readily prescribe physical therapy for those problems. But did you know that physical therapy can also effectively treat symptoms associated with a wide variety of diseases and conditions?
Clients with these ailments have found improvement and relief with physical therapy.
- Lymphedema
- Muscular dystrophy
- Osteoporosis
- Respiratory issues, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, and more,
When it comes to unexplained pain and dysfunction and biomechanical problems, physical therapy has a long track record of proven results. Physical therapists identify and treat the root cause of many peripheral problems, often a consequence of an underlying problem, such as adhesions.
The Comprehensive List of 30 Adhesion-Related Health Problems to Ask your Doctor about
Adhesions can squeeze nerves, organs, and joints – causing internal pain or dysfunction, including female infertility, life-threatening bowel obstructions, and numerous other problems. How can you know if you have adhesion-related health problems? This list provides some basic information about adhesion-related health problems and their causes.
- Menstrual Pain / Dysmenorrhea – Adhesions pull ligaments, fascias, or connective tissues that attach the uterus to surrounding structures
- Intercourse Pain / Sexual Dysfunction – Adhesions form between muscle cells deep within the cervix and/or attach to the vaginal wall, entrance, or other pain-sensitive structures.
- This reduces elasticity, potentially pulling the tailbone forward, and negatively impacts desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, and satisfaction.
- Endometriosis Pain – Adhesions pull on pain-sensitive structures caused by endometriosis.
- Genital Mutilation – Adhesions can cause a lifetime of chronic pain and dysfunction.
- Cervical Stenosis – Adhesions can tighten, narrow, or close the entrance to the uterus and pull on the uterus, causing inflammation, pain, and more adhesions.
- These can ascend within the uterus to block one or both fallopian tubes.
- Mastectomy Pain – Adhesions can form in the chest wall, neck, shoulders, and arms, causing pain and tightness or a condition called “frozen shoulder.”
- Hysterectomy Pain – Adhesions can form at the surgical site and connect to neighboring structures like the intestines, bowels, vagina, or bladder.
- C-Section Pain – Adhesions can form at the surgical site and cause pain and tightness in the pelvic region.
- Myomectomy Pain – Adhesions can form within the uterus and decrease the chances of successful implantation of a fertilized egg, increasing the likelihood of miscarriage, or form outside of the uterus and bind delicate reproductive structures together, impairing function.
- Blocked Fallopian Tubes – Adhesions and internal scars are the primary causes of tubal blockage.
- Hydrosalpinx – Adhesions can cause the swelling of the fallopian tubes.
- Endometriosis Infertility – Inflammation that accompanies the endometrial swelling can continually cause more and more adhesions to form, impairing functions necessary for fertility.
- Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) – Adhesions can cover the ovaries.
- Pre-IVF Treatment / Age, High FSH & Hormonal – Adhesions can form at the uterus, cervix (called stenosis of the cervix), and fallopian tubes, and the dura and skull (near the pituitary, the “master gland” of female reproduction), reducing FSH levels and decreasing implantation rates.
- Unexplained Infertility (UI), a.k.a. Idiopathic Infertility – Adhesions are invisible on X-rays, ultrasounds, MRI, or CT scans.
- Secondary Infertility – A reproductive tract traumatized by the initial pregnancy or birth can result in adhesions that interfere with future fertility.
- Neck Pain – Adhesions can form when neck muscles are inflamed by poor posture, injury, or other causes.
- Back & Hip Pain – Adhesions can form at the sacral joints, causing biomechanical and soft tissue dysfunctions.
- Tailbone Pain – A misaligned tailbone can cause mobility problems, constipation, reproductive problems, and the formation of adhesions that aggravate all of these issues.
- Childhood Surgery/Trauma – When adhesions and scar tissue that form with surgery do not grow and expand with the rest of the body as the child grows, problems can last a lifetime.
- Migraines/Chronic Headaches – Internal scarring creates unnatural pressure that affects complex pain-sensitive structures in the head.
- TMJ/TMD – Adhesions can cause tightness or asymmetries that affect the jaw or temporomandibular joints.
- Myofascial Pain (MPS) – Adhesions cause mechanical problems with the body’s structure, resulting in pain.
- Post-Radiation Pain – Radiation therapy adhesions cause irradiated tissues to adhere to nearby organs, muscles, bones, and connective tissues.
- Pain After Abuse – Trauma causes adhesions that can remain in the body for a lifetime without intervention.
- Abdominal Pain – Internal scarring can form between the ribs and the pubic bone, decreasing function and causing pain.
- Pelvic Pain / Groin Pain – Internal scarring can form when the membrane covering the abdominal and pelvic organs becomes inflamed and or the infection spreads throughout the abdominopelvic cavity.
- Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Inflammatory Diseases – Adhesions are a significant concern for patients with inflammatory diseases, slowing digestion and causing pain, nausea, bloating, distension, constipation, or diarrhea.
- Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) – Adhesions can slow or stop bacteria from exiting the digestive system, contributing to the recurrence of SIBO and causing additional adhesions.
- Small Bowel Obstruction (SBO) – Adhesions can interfere with or completely block the passage of food and waste material, causing stomach pain and “stringy poop.”
Do not avoid medical care or ignore illness, pain, or other health problems. During National Self-Check Month, make a wellness appointment, and be sure to ask your physician about physical therapy for any adhesion-related conditions you may have. Take a stand for your health by seeking treatment that will produce the desired results while avoiding the risks and side effects associated with surgery and medications.
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