How do i relax my muscles?

It is important to understand why your muscles are tight to begin with.  Is this a lifelong problem that started with childhood issues of constipation or bladder infections at the age of 3 or 4?  Or is it a problem that started after trauma to the pelvic floor such as after a difficult vaginal delivery or after surgery.  Muscles also become tight as a result of anything that causes pain such as low back pain issues, bad menstrual cramps, bladder pain syndrome or introital irritation problems such as lichen sclerosis or vulvodynia.  If your muscles are tight because of other pain problems, those other problems need to be treated as well as therapy directed to the muscles themselves.

There are many options that will help your muscles become more relaxed.  Simple relaxation and breathing techniques are always important-especially if stress seems to be a trigger.  Manual physical therapy by a trained physical therapist or manual myofascial release techniques using various vaginal wands (the “Crystal Wand” or similar devices are available online) has been the standard of care for many years.  Unfortunately, this can be uncomfortable and certainly has a tendency to flare your symptoms especially during the early treatment sessions.  Medications can also be used to help the muscles relax but muscle relaxers will often result in side effects such as sedation.  Sola pelvic therapy is the newest approach for the management of myofascial pain.  This therapy involves 9 treatment sessions using a special device which provides benefit by directly relaxing the muscles, improving blood supply, reducing inflammation and turning off nerve fibers involved in pelvic floor pain.  The therapeutic energy provided by this treatment is called photobiomodulation.  It is the most efficient way to manage every component of pelvic pain with a 75% response rate-almost half of the patients will have resolution.  Go to www.solapelvictherapy.com for more information.