birmingham health physiotherapy
Pelvic Health Physiotherapy and the Menopausal Vagina: Me and My Menopausal Vagina: Jane Lewis

There is often a perception that in our UK specialist pelvic health  Physiotherapy clinics in Birmingham & Solihull that we mainly see patients related to pregnancy or those that are post natal. We do see lots of these women and our Mummy MOT is on the lips of many new mums , NCT educators, fitness professionals.  However, probably one of the main groups of women we see are peri and post menopausal women.

Menopause like a lot of pelvic health conditions is a neglected topic in healthcare. By your mid 30's hormonal changes will be happening  and into your 40's changes will be occuring physically and emotionally but we are not great at our own self care in seeking advice or help or even being happy chatting about this to our partner or best friends or family. Many of our male friends, relative or partners can barely say the word, menopause. We are keen to help to change this.

Where does Pelvic Health Physiotherapy come in?
Following menopause it's estimated that possibly 40-60% of women will have vaginal or pelvic health symptoms that can dramatically affect their well being, quality of life, relationships and sense of being a woman. This is also the time when women are more at risk of developing conditions such as prolapse, vaginal atrophy , urinary leakage , back and hip pain and pelvic pain  with intimacy. Some  of the key symptoms we see our menopausal women complain of but rarely speak of is vaginal atrophy, thinning  and dryness, leading to pain on intimacy and relationship challenges. 

Pain on intimacy can also be associated with overactivity of the pelvic floor muscles leading to a feeling of pressure or tightness inside. These menopausal symptoms can also come at a time when relationships can be more challenging anyways or when someone may be embarking on a new relationship which can add to the  stress and anxiety of that.  Our specialist pelvic health physios work with some of the West Midlands and UK leading specialists in both uroygnae and menopause. They are skilled at treating conditions such as prolapse, pelvic pain, urinary sympoms and vaginal atropy. They can also advise on intimate issues such as the correct vaginal lubricants, how to improve the health of the vaginal and vulva tissues, developing and improving intimacy and getting your body back to where you want it.

Me and My Menopausal Vagina: Jane & Gina Lewis
We have been fortunate to know Jane Lewis for many years through her invaluable work with the UK pelvic pain forums that Jane has invested much time and effort in. Jane is a passionate advocate for better pelvic health care and especially better pelvic and vaginal health care around menopause. We are very excited that her book that she co-wrote with her daughter Gina on menopausal related vaginal atrophy is just about to be launched. This is a must read for every woman and we are excited to be working with Jane and Gina to promote the book (hard copy and E copy). We will promote it  to all of our patients and those who read our blogs but also to the 10000 pelvic health physios that we have in our educational facebook group for women's health physiotherapy and on all our courses where we train other physios in pelvic health.

We are also excited that  Jane will be visiting one of our clinics in Birmingham  in October to do some podcasts and videos with us on her work. On of our own Pelvic health specialists Fiona Mitchell has had some input with Jane and her team and has done a wonderful review of the book. We are keen to get women starting to talk about the menopause and to feel safe talking about it.   Pelvic Health Physio team.