What is dry needling? Do I need it?

I'm not sure what day it is but I know that can't be a good thing.

Motherhood. The most maddening, exhausting, often thankless but also the most incredible, gratifying, joyful job in the whole world. And it can go from one extreme to the other in a matter of seconds. This rollercoaster ride is exhausting even on a good day and it doesn't take long to learn that just with every new phase comes new challenges and rewards. It never ends. It's a burden that never lets up. There are no vacation days and even if you do get a "break," you are never fully removed from your duties because it's impossible to turn off that part of your brain and your heart.

I know that I don't speak for everyone when I describe the ups and downs of motherhood, but I also know that if any of my closest friends read the above statements they'd agree. Which means there's probably a lot of women who feel this way about being a mom. And if a chunk of us can acknowlege the incredible challenges of motherhood, why do we continue to add the burdens of perfection to our plates? It's heavy enough just trying to do the mininum. Most of us want to do better than the bare minimum as mothers but it's really hard. Society pressures us to do more, be better, curl our hair, put on makeup, bake for the bake sale, be on all the committees, do it all. It's too much. At least for some of us who already deal with mental health issues like anxiety and depression and fear and constant worry.

I had a crazy week last week and it was obvious that I wasn't handling the stress of life all that well. I spent Tuesday thinking it was Wednesday, Wednesday thinking it was Thursday, and then Saturday I got the time of a work talk mixed up and was late. This is not okay when you are a new business in town trying to make a good impression. Of course, all of these things were my own fault. I could, for instance, have just pointed my eyeballs onto my phone to see what day it was and certainly could have double and triple checked the time of my event on Saturday.

But look, I don't think our mom brains are designed to be this busy, have this many pressures on us. Today, we are expected to work (many of us full time), be the best Pinterest mom out there, look put together, act put together, get kids to 1 million activities on time with the right snacks, join the right clubs or church or boards. It's too much. Social media is too much. It's all just too much. How is this okay? How is okay to have a brain so cluttered with information and worries that you literally don't know what day it is for TWO FULL DAYS.

Now, I need to say that I realize this is not everyone. Not everyone struggles with anxiety and has a hard time functioning on overdrive. I know many incredible women and mothers who are their best selves when they are going full throttle all the time. Moms who crave that instead of recoil from it. For me, that breaks me down. I crave silence, peace, solitude in order to recharge my batteries. That's why this past week was such a signal to me to slow it down.

I spend several minutes in my birth classes telling my mommas that they have to allow their bodies to heal after childbirth. That it takes over a year for our bodies to heal from pregnancy and birth, often longer since we end up having to go back to work so quickly despite lack of sleep, continued tissue trauma, pain, etc. I'm very good at telling other moms to give themselves grace. I tell them to be kind to themselves, to allow themselves to be imperfect. Yet here I am, late for an important event because I've allowed myself to be overwhelmed. I've allowed myself to say yes to everything in an effort to please everyone. The result is that no one gets my best self. Not my clients, not my husband, not my kids, not me.

This is not sustainable. I can't be everything to every person. It's true, I just started a business and that is important. My friends are important. My church and my kids' school is important. But for this season, I'm supposed to be a mother. My number one priority changed when my son was born, and sometimes I have to remember that it's okay to say no, to set boundaries, to walk through Harris Teeter without makeup if it means I was able to quiet the chaos of my mind for a bit so I can be a better mom and wife.

I have decided already that my New Year's resolution for 2020 is going to be setting more intentional goals for each week as well as boundaries for what we as a family can commit to. I know it won't be easy, but I know that I have to practice what I preach for the good of my kids and my family. It means quieting my anxiety-ridden brain so that I can be a better PT for my patients who need that from me. It means being a better friend when my village needs me. It means saying yes to myself and motherhood and no to some of the noise. We'll see how it goes. Just remember, none of us know what another mom is going through, how she feels inside. We are very good at faking it. We are great at pretending to have it together, when sometimes it becomes obvious that we don't. Sometimes our friend has to text us to tell us what day it is, and that's when you know you need to regroup and reset your priorities. At least, for me that's a telltale sign.

Fayetteville Pelvic Health & Wellness
Lacy Kells PT, DPT
Owner

lacykells@fayettevillepelvichealth.com
910-309-3726


Follow me on Facebook: Lacy Kells PT, DPT
Follow me on Instagram: @lacykellspt

Website coming soon!!
www.fayettevillepelvichealth.com

Breathing break

What is dry needling? Do I need it?

Posture Reset

Arachnophobia and the Damp Panties

It's October and my son is obsessed with holiday decorating. We have a Halloween light show set to music currently set up in our front yard and this is just a tiny little warm up for his Christmas spectacular that will be coming soon to the lucky people of our neighborhood....Sorry y'all.

Part of his decor includes a couple of small spiders. Spiders are my number 1 fear in the entire world. I hate them, I can sense them near me, I can't look at them. It's a legitimate phobia and my children think that it's hilarious to hold up a fake tarantula near me and watch my terror. Super fun.

Here's the thing-  lots of women would not only be freaked out by the arachnic near their shoulder but also be freaked out by the fact that screaming and jumping would cause leaking. The case of the damp panties. No one wants to walk around Spirit Halloween in damp panties y'all. No one. And guess what, WE DON'T HAVE TO.

Did you get that? IT'S NEVER NORMAL TO PEE ON YOURSELF.

Even if there's a disgusting hairy fake spider near you and you'd rather curl up and die than have it touching your body. Even then. Not okay to pee.

What causes us to leak urine? 
1. Well, it could be weak pelvic floor muscles. Often, the muscles in our pelvic floor don't do a great job of keeping pressure on the urethra and keeping our pee inside of us. Our urethras are shorter than mens' so there's not as much distance between our bladders and the outside of our bodies unfortunately. The downward pressure of the shriek, cough, jump, sneeze can overcome the muscles and allow pee to squirt out.

2. Sometimes, the muscles are strong but get tired easily. Do you notice that you leak more at the end of the day? Your muscles may have good power, but get fatigued and just can't help you as much at the end of a busy day. This can cause leaking as well!

3. There is also the case of the tight muscles. A big number of us women are actually weak because our muscles are tight. Our muscles are too tense to work well for us, so when we try and use them they just can't get that good power behind them. Plus, when we cough, sneeze, run from a tarantula, the muscles are so tight that they can't let go to help take the load. Think of it like a trampoline. When you land on the trampoline, it gives a little before bouncing you back into the air. This is similar to how it works when you jump or laugh, the pelvic floor has to give a little before activating and lifting back up. If it can't, then you are jumping up and down on a firm floor and you are going to leak.




So, the next time your darling children, neighbor's children, grandchildren, students come at you with a horrifying beast such as a fake arachnid (or snake, frog, ghoul and ghost, whatever makes you recoil in fear), take a minute to think about your panties. Are they damp? If so, you know there's a little something that can use some attention in your pelvic floor!! Kegels may or may NOT be the answer for you and there IS a right way to Kegel, so get the help you need so that next Halloween even the nastiest eight legged creature won't scare the pee out of you!

Fayetteville Pelvic Health & Wellness
Lacy Kells, owner

lacykells@fayettevillepelvichealth.com
910-309-3726


Follow me on Facebook: Lacy Kells PT, DPT
Follow me on Instagram: @lacykellspt

Website coming soon!!
www.fayettevillepelvichealth.com

Cesarean Recovery Before I Knew Better

Six years ago I found out I was pregnant with twins. It was a complete shock and we didn't find out until our anatomy ultrasound halfway through the pregnancy. Because I am how I am, I had a full on panic attack in the ultrasound room because I did NOT want twins. I don't know why, I guess I felt like I had just now crawled out of the depths of depression after my son and now I was going to have to do it again, except with two.

Anyway, my pregnancy was very uneventful. Thankfully, both baby girls were healthy and I didn't have any complications. The only slight issue was that Baby B was breech. She never ended up turning and after lots of consideration, my husband and I opted for a Cesarean delivery. I'd had a vaginal delivery with my son two years earlier and while everything went okay, the recovery was  hard for me. I was depressed, had a pretty gnarly tear, and my kid didn't sleep. I was also not a Pelvic Health PT at that time and didn't know a whole lot about recovery back then. I didn't know much about Cesarean birth or recovery at that time.

Picture then night before our twins were born!

I will say that a scheduled Cesearan felt like a vacation after the labor, fatigue, and complete exhaustion from my first delivery. We'd gotten a night of sleep, were able to get up and putt around the house with our son before heading to the hospital around 10am. The surgery went well and for a good many hours that day I was still nice and numb which meant I could focus on nursing the babies instead of the pain.

However, there wasn't much information for me after the delivery. Not a whole lot of education on what I should expect after this major surgery, how to help my body heal, even what was normal pain versus something to worry about. I was sent home with a cheap belly binder and told to schedule my follow up with my OB for 6 weeks. 



It was a lonely time and sometimes filled with fear. I remember feeling a pain in my belly that I became convinced was nerve related and would never go away. I started catastophizing about how I'd have this pain forever and become depressed and suicidal and never be able to care for my kids. I did call the nurse and she felt like it was okay and sure enough, the pain went away, but those days of fear were exhausting because I just didn't know.

First hour at home two days after Cesarean section.

Now, if we all had Pelvic PTs in our lives, things might look a little different. We would have a good bit more knowledge about what to expect, how to heal, and what's normal and what's not. Here's how things would have been better for me had I known then what I know now:

First of all, I would have been working on proper core activation and breathing long before delivery, Cesarean OR vaginal birth. This would have not only helped my core stay happy, but would have allowed my pelvic floor to move through a nice range of motion in preparation for delivery. I would have immediately started working on this breathing in the hospital bed that first day, certainly before the effects of the spinal wore off so that my belly could get a nice, natural movement and let my pelvic floor come along for the ride also. Not only does this help with relaxation and pain relief but it also promotes healing and a reduction in swelling in the belly and labias. Who knew right? I probably would have done some belly binding (like my friend Melissa at The Fayetteville Doulas showed me recently) that would have helped me move around better, promoted healing, reduced pain). A few weeks later I would have started gentle abdominal massage to promote bowel motility (I tried to stay off the pain meds but just being in the hospital taking them can promote constipation). This could have also helped my abdominal muscles function better, therefore helping my abdominal separation become less of an issue AND helping me lift the babies with less pain and risk of injury to my back (which still bothers me six years later). I would have gotten the go ahead from my doctor around 6 weeks once the scar tissue had healed to begin scar tissue massage. This is gentle massage of the Cesarean scar that helps the tissues move well and reduce the risk of things getting super stuck later on. A Cesarean scar that doesn't allow tissues to move well can actually contribute to low back pain, hip flexor pain, urinary urgency/frequency, continued dysfunction from abdominal separation, pain when you are moving or exercising and more! It's defintely something I would have worked on to help get me moving on the right foot. I would have also had a Pelvic PT do an internal exam to check my pelvic floor muscle function. I would probably at that point have started on some Kegels since I wouldn't have had pelvic floor tension and this would have greatly helped my back pain and my leaking over the last few years.

Alas, I didn't have one in my life at the time so it's been a lot of years of dysfunction that have made it a lot harder to deal with now. I hate that women aren't getting the education we deserve, the preparation we desperately need before childbirth and in the postpartum periods. I do think things are getting better. In the past year I've met several amazing doulas in town who share the passion for educating women that I do and they are doing great things. I have met women who have been fortunate enough to have seen a Pelvic PT and are so excited for all the knowledge they had going into their births. I have colleagues in town working their tails off to make women's experiences better and so many on social media who are doing the brave thing and putting this information out there into the universe. However, I think we have a ways to go. We still need to talk about birth more openly, about recovery and our experiences with less embarrassment and shame. There is NOTHING shameful about childbirth - and when I say childbirth let me make it clear that no matter how that baby comes out, it's birth. Cesearean section or vaginal birth is all still birth. There is nothing shameful about recovering from up to 9 months of difficult physical exertion (growing a human being in our body) and then going through a birth. It's no joke and it's not easy and it's okay to have to take a long time to heal and recover.  What's NOT okay is the lack of knowlege moms have going through all of this.

My hubby with our baby girls.
This was one of their favoritate places
to sleep! 

Please, tell your loved ones that there is so much more out there for them. Find a doula and start asking questions, ask your provider for information, or find a Pelvic PT in your area to help get you started. I offer monthly Birth Body classes where we talk about how to prepare your body for labor and delivery and how to start your healing process just hours after you give birth in a safe and healthy way. We talk about how to start using your abdominals and pelvic floor after birth in ways you can work on while you are breastfeeding, rocking, playing with baby. We talk about what's normal and what's not and when to ask for help. I'm not writing this blog to promote this class though, I'm writing it to continue to try and spread awareness for women, specifically mommas this time, that there is SO much we don't know that we really ought to know. Let's continue to demand better for ourselves, get the education we deserve, and become healtier moms for our babies!

Lacy

Fayetteville Pelvic Health & Wellness
Lacy Kells, owner

lacykells@fayettevillepelvichealth.com
910-309-3726


Follow me on Facebook: Lacy Kells PT, DPT
Follow me on Instagram: @lacykellspt