FYZICAL Oklahoma City wants to thank Dr. Arielle Allen for her guest post this Pelvic Pain Awareness Month. Check it out below.
May is Pelvic Pain Awareness Month, what you may not know is that there is a group of highly trained physicians right here in Oklahoma City who specialize in helping you navigate your pelvic pain. We are known as Urogynecologists. Urogynecology is also formally known as the specialty of female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery, or FPMRS, for short.
To become a urogynecologist, I completed four years of medical school, four years of an ACGME-accredited obstetrics/gynecology residency, and three years of an ACGME-accredited urogynecology fellowship. It was a loooong road, but totally worth it! My favorite thing to hear a patient say is “I wish I had come to you sooner!”
What is a Pelvic Pain Disorder?
While I don’t have a favorite condition to treat, I enjoy anything that positively impacts a patient’s quality of life. And treating pelvic pain is one area of my practice where we can see really great improvement in your quality of life.
A pelvic pain disorder is when you experience pain anywhere in your pelvic area, either constantly or intermittently. Sometimes the pain can be related to specific activities, such as intercourse or exercise, or related to bodily functions such as having a full bladder or needing to have a bowel movement. There are many different conditions and diagnoses that can cause women, like you, to experience pain in this area.
What is the Treatment for Pelvic Pain?
Seeing your obstetrician/gynecologist is always the first step in having your pelvic pain evaluated. Your OB/Gyn will do a full gynecologic assessment and determine if your pain condition is within their scope of practice, or more within the realm of a urogynecologist. Unfortunately, you may be one of the women with more than one diagnosis leading to pain in their pelvic area. This requires help from both your OB/Gyn and your Urogynecologist. Some of the common pelvic pain syndromes treated by your obstetrician/gynecologists include dyspareunia (pain with intercourse), endometriosis and adenomyosis, to name a few.
Pelvic pain conditions that are more likely within your Urogynecologist’s scope of practice include pelvic floor muscle spasm and interstitial cystitis. These conditions can lead to a variety of painful symptoms such as pain with intercourse, pain with a full bladder, pain upon urination and/or pain with defecation. These conditions can be difficult to diagnose and are often seen together with other painful conditions such as endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome.
When it comes to Pelvic Pain, I utilize the help of pelvic floor physical therapists DAILY! PFPT is beneficial for ALL women. I wish I could get every one of my patients to see a pelvic floor physical therapist like the ladies at FYZICAL Oklahoma City to ensure our patients get the most from our care. More specifically, though, the most common pelvic pain issues I refer patients to PT are dyspareunia, and pelvic floor muscle spasm. Treatment of pelvic pain disorders is often multi-modal and can include several specialists such as OB/Gyn’s, Urogynecologists, Pelvic Floor Physical Therapists, Counselors, and Gastroenterologists, all coordinating care to provide the best therapeutic response.
What else does a Urogynecologist Treat?
In addition to the pelvic pain disorders I have highlighted, urogynecologists treat disorders of all kinds involving the female pelvic floor. There are a wide variety of disorders we see, but the great majority of what we manage is pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. Pelvic organ prolapse is where the vaginal walls and pelvic support structures become weak, allowing one or more pelvic organs to fall into the vagina and bulge out of the vaginal opening. The most common pelvic organ that can fall is the bladder. When pelvic organs prolapse, their function is often altered. A fallen bladder, for example, can make it difficult for a woman to empty her bladder completely.
The other common condition we see, urinary incontinence, comes in several forms, but can negatively affect a woman’s quality of life significantly. The good news is, there are often really good treatment options for both prolapse and urinary incontinence! Just as with pelvic pain, I really value a team approach to coordinating care for my patients with urinary incontinence and/or bladder control problems, pelvic floor laxity and mild pelvic organ prolapse, dyspareunia, pelvic floor muscle spasm, and fecal incontinence.
And as with pelvic pain, my patients and I have found PFPT to be a highly effective treatment modality for the conditions mentioned above (and many good studies back this up). Ideally, I would want every postpartum woman to undergo PFPT within the first six months of having a baby, to teach them how to maintain a healthy pelvic floor. I believe this would prevent many cases of pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence (urinary or fecal) that can occur later in life.
- Dr. Arielle Allen
Dr. Arielle Allen is the mother of two wonderful littles that brighten her world. She is the wife to the smartest man she’s ever met. And she is a full-time fellowship-trained urogynecologist. Urogynecology is fulfilling because she gets to make a positive impact on women’s lives every day. Improving the quality of life of women is rewarding and is what keeps her going day after day! The Pelvic Floor Physical Therapists at FYZICAL Oklahoma City work with Dr. Allen and her team on a daily basis, and we cannot say enough wonderful things about what Dr. Allen and urogynecologists do for our patients. If you have pain, prolapse, or incontinence and need to speak to a physician you can reach Dr. Allen through her Facebook page: or by calling her office to schedule an appointment (405) 936-1000.