The Physical Toll of Motherhood: What Every Mom Should Know About Pelvic Floor Health

If you've ever been told that leaking when you laugh, lingering aches, painful intercourse, or simply "not feeling like yourself" after having a baby is just part of motherhood...this episode is for you.

This week, I'm joined by pelvic floor physical therapist and owner of Louisiana Pelvic Health, Dr.Melissa Thompson, for an eye opening conversation about the physical toll motherhood takes on our bodies and why so many women are silently suffering with issues that they don't have to just deal with.

Melissa shares her own journey of searching for answers to unresolved pain, how discovering pelvic floor physical therapy completely changed her life, and why it ultimately inspired her to build a practice dedicated to helping women find relief.

In this episode, we talk about:
• What the pelvic floor actually does and why it matters
• Common symptoms that are often dismissed as "normal" after pregnancy and childbirth
• Why kegels aren't always the answer (and can sometimes make things worse)
• How breathing, movement, and individualized treatment can make a huge difference
• The surprising connection between constipation and pelvic floor dysfunction
• My own experience as one of Melissa's patients and the improvements I've already seen with my rib flare and pelvic floor related symptoms

Melissa also opens up about learning to let go of perfectionism, creating healthier time boundaries, and accepting that success sometimes looks different in different seasons of motherhood.

Whether you're a new mom, years postpartum, or simply wondering if the symptoms you've been living with are actually treatable, this conversation is your reminder that you don't have to be part of the "wounded moms club."

Your body deserves care, too.

Connect with Dr. Melissa Thompson and Louisiana Pelvic Health:
LouisianaPelvicHealth.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to the Mompreneur Collective, where we share real stories straight from Mompreneurs out there building businesses while also building families. I'm your host and certified life and business coach, Jamie Smith, and on this podcast, you'll hear about the struggles, the success, and the messy middle that's sometimes the most beautiful part of it all. Today's guest is Dr. Melissa Thompson, owner of Louisiana Pelvic Health. And what we're gonna get into is how, as moms, we don't just carry a lot of weight mentally, but we carry a lot of physical weight too. The toll our bodies take through the whole pregnancy journey, through postpartum, and beyond, you know, having a toddler on your hip all day. It's just incredible what our bodies go through and what they're capable of. And while motherhood is a beautiful thing, the toll that it takes on our body is not always so beautiful. So many moms are suffering with some sort of residual pain or lingering just issue after having a baby. And what most of us moms do is we just grin and bear it. We just go, ah, this is just, you know, I'm part of the wounded moms club. I had a baby, so this is just normal. All moms have these kinds of issues, no big deal. I can just deal with it. And we just go about our lives with these certain annoyances, pains, issues that absolutely can be resolved with the right support. And that's what we're gonna get into today. I want to make sure that you know that support exists for you. You do not just have to deal with it. How I felt after speaking with Dr. Melissa about some of the issues that I was having for the first time was validated. And I hope that you walk away from today's episode feeling the same way, feeling validated if you're experiencing any of the things that we're talking about today, because it's just a good feeling to know that the things that you're feeling in your body are indeed happening for a reason because something is not right. And when you find the right support, doctor, person to help you, it just is validating to hear what's really going on and to have that knowledge about what's happening inside of your body and the hope that is then given to you that we can get you better. We can get you to a place of feeling healthy and well again and physically capable of doing all the things. All right. So without further ado, let's welcome her onto the show. So, Dr. Melissa, welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you here with us today. Thank you. Super excited to be here. Yeah, so I would really love to just dive straight into your story because when you and I first spoke, you shared your story with me, and you shared how in the past you had some health issues and you were going through the motions with seeing different doctors and trying to find the answers, trying to find the support that you needed. And you really struggled with that. You weren't really finding the right support. And so I just, without me saying any more, I would love for you to share your story with us.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, absolutely. I would love to share. So, um, like so many of my patients, and it's kind of how you know things all started, because I didn't always want to be a business owner. That was like never on my radar. Really? But so if we back up like pretty much all of my adult life, um, I've had like some kind of pelvic pain, uh SI, which is just like part of your back, your spine um pain. And then um, once I became like more adult active, I started having like painful intercourse and vaginal pain and all these more like intense symptoms that just seemed super random. And when I started looking into it, I found that there was no one doctor that could just like take everything that I was feeling and just tell me, like, oh, this is what's going on. Over the years, I came to learn it's probably driven from endovitriosis, which is a super common issue that women go misdiagnose or underdiagnosed for and the research is like around 10 years right now. And so women are often like dealing with this like really heavy diagnosis. And when they go see someone, they're just getting uh treatment for one symptom at a time. And that's what was happening to me. So it started out as just it seemed like an innocent little irritation in my back. Like, so you have your spine, which is like more the middle of your back, all the way from, you know, your head to your tailbone. Um, I was having pain in the SI joints, which is like nearby, uh connecting the sacrum and the hip. And this was coming out with uh running and working out and in college. I was in tiger band, and so I did a lot of activity, not nearly to the level of like sports activity or like daily athletics, but you know, I was going to see physical therapists and I was getting treated with, you know, your standard physical therapy. You know, they would work on me and then I would have some exercises and you just like keep going, and um, that would hold for a little while. And then um, when I started realizing that I also had the vaginal pain, I didn't know anything about the pelvic floor at the time. I was just like, that's weird. I need to go to a vaginal doctor. And so I my brain is like not connecting like the two things that are going on together. And so I'm freaking out, as most women do, because I'm like, oh my God, I have this like intense pain and it comes on with sexual activity or like randomly, and I'm also like 20-something years old, and I'm dribbling urine whenever I, you know, stand up and I'm like, what is going on? And I go to an ob-guine, which is, you know, what most people kind of think to do. And I'm like, I have an infection. You know, I'm coming in like I just know everything, but I don't. And I'm like, I probably have a yeast infection and or this and that. And like, that's all I could think of. And um, they, you know, the doctor at the time like swapped me, and she's like, visually, I don't see evidence of that, but we go ahead, we can go ahead and like run it. It'll be back from the lab whatever day. And then I get a prescription for a yeast medication because I guess it doesn't hurt to just take it. And this like cycle continued where they would call me and they would say, Everything's negative, and then I would say, Well, why am I having this pain? And they would say, I don't know, you're fine. And so we were going in circles, right? So we had that situation, and then I was having like the back pain. And then fast forward, I go to physical therapy school and I'm having neck pain. And I'm just like, I can't do anything. Like, I can't work out. I I'm like sitting and studying, I've got all this other pain, and it just started, it just like flies under the radar, right? Because you're just like, I guess I'm just not the body type that can be an athlete, that's for sure. Cause if I had more demands on my body, I don't know how I would deal with them. But finally, I think I randomly through one of my good friends got a personal referral to just a completely different Obi-Gon group in New Orleans at the time. And I don't think she's like a specialist, but just her bedside manner was different, her um discussion of everything was different. And she was like, Well, Dr. Melissa, I think it's your pelvic floor. And I'm like, What? Because in PT school, we learn the the bare, bare minimum of pelvic floor. They're like, that's for later. If you really want to go and specialize in that for board, you can learn that there are three types of incontinence and there's all these muscles. And then after you graduate, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, luck to you type thing. So I'm still in PT school at this time. And she's like, You have all the signs and symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction. I agree, you don't need to keep getting on all these medications. It's really bad for your gut. It's really bad to just throw medications at you if you don't actually have all these infections. And um, she's like, You have a hypertonic pelvic floor, and that is more than likely causing all of the burning, the aching, like the leakage. So then I changed from orthopedic PTs and I started seeing pelvic floor therapist. And that opened the can of worms into um what ended up helping me, which they're come to learn not only is pelvic floor therapy its own like specialty, but there's like a million ways to do pelvic therapy. And you would think like it's all the same, but it's absolutely not the same. And what really didn't work for me was what I call like more passive treatment. So just going and getting um laying on a table and getting released and then doing like some basic stretches in the office. It would help and then it would come back, it would help, and it would come back, it would help, and then it would come back. And that's very frustrating for anybody that's dealing with any kind of like symptom that they're trying to overcome because you don't feel, or at least I didn't feel like empowered. I felt reliant on having to like be in these therapies and that my body is like failing me and all these things. And so I ended up trying over the years different types of pelvic therapies, and then I kind of created my own blend of a way. So the more full body approach works better for me. So my neck affects my pelvic floor, and I see that with a ton of patients. Like it's very common that if you have pelvic pain, you also have neck and TMJ issues, um, even if that's not driving you in to see the therapist.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

If we don't just want to pause like super quickly right there, Melilla, you're saying so much stuff that's just like dropping these bombs that I feel like we need to, we just need to pause real quick. So something so unrelated, like neck pain or TMJ issues, which hi, I experienced both of those things could potentially be related to your pelvic floor, which just as a normal person, I would have no knowledge of that, no clue that that could potentially be what's going on. And so I hope y'all are taking notes and I hope y'all are listening because there's so much that I have learned from her already before today's conversation, even in today's conversation already, but there's so many different issues that could be going on inside of your body that could all be connected. Um, so one of the things that Melissa said was she was going to all these different doctors, kind of trying to treat each of the different things on their own. And I think a lot of us can approach things that way. We're just like, oh, I need to, I myself, I'm like, I'm having these five different issues that I'd love to prioritize this year and take my health, you know, um, into my own control. And so I'm starting to make all these appointments and then I go and see Dr. Melissa, and she's like, oh, that's connected to that, that's connected to that. I think this is connected to this. And it's just crazy to me. Our bodies are crazy. So I just had to stop and say no, I love that continue.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, no, I love that because that is where physical therapists uh fit into the spectrum of things. So we're looking at what we call the kinetic chain. And well, I guess, okay, not every physical therapist practices like me, which is why I just had to go create my own business, apparently. Um, because oftentimes you you will go to just the vagina doctor or the vagina PT, and all they do is look at the pelvic floor, but come to find out like my neck was driving a lot of it. Um, my SI and my pelvic floor are working together. So, in a lot of more of my deeper corrective exercise and like root cause training, the pelvic floor muscles, they um attach to your bony pelvis. So all the bones that that make up your pelvis, the pelvic floor attaches and the SI joints are right there. And so SI pain and pelvic floor dysfunction absolutely have to be treated together. And I was trust being treated just for SI stability, probably squeezing the crap out of my pelvic floor all the time during all of my different exercises and strategies. And so to really take 20 steps back and zoom out is where I like to play detective because the way your rib cage is positioned and a lot of times postpartum, we're stuck in rib flare. And that has an effect not only up the chain, but down the chain. And so if we're in rib flare, the diaphragm is still behaving as if you're still pregnant, and it's a flattened out, stretched out muscle, and stretched out muscles don't know how to contract and relax. And your diaphragm helps fill your air with lungs and connects to your pelvic floor fascial lines. So everybody who comes and sees me, no matter what you have going on, I'm gonna assess your rib cage and your diaphragm and your breathing because that's like exercise number one. That if you can connect that mind-body connection without rib flare and without chest breathing, you can go ahead and feel what the pelvic floor feels like. Um, so this kinetic chain theory really rocked my world. And of course, I went off and I got like certified um through Sarah Duvall, have my PCES, which is like pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise specialist. I did more with her just to work with the bony pelvis. And so, like movements and mechanics and all of that is like my bread and butter. And I think that like a question that um you even asked me with some of how I design the model of my treatment, it'll definitely make your head spin when you first hear about it, because I don't do just sessions. There's nobody that comes to my clinic that I'm saying, like, just come to a million bajillion sessions and let's take care of this. Um, I design a corrective exercise program that is running in the background. And I think to some, at first, when you hear that, you're like, what does that mean? I'm just gonna do some exercises, right? But it's really about finding the right exercises that make the biggest change and then getting in there, doing them, giving me feedback and me seeing how your body responds to that. Like you just learned so much about your body. And it's the to me, it's this having the right prescribed exercise plan that evolves weekly is almost a bigger like rabbit hole and a bigger benefit than just coming to sessions and like doing the manual therapy. So combining both, that's my jam. And then I also a couple of years ago, I got really interested in hormones and like the natural um side of things with like cycle tracking. And so I got my FAM certification through Lisa Hendricks Jack, which is fertility awareness, or a lot of people might know it by like natural family planning. Um, and I use that a lot for my clients who are in the preconception phase, or um, you know, I just screen all menstrual cycles. So if you're not on hormonal contraceptives and you're not ovulating and you're not having the normal patterns and you're having heavy period pain and all these things. And then you're also telling me you have pain with sex and you're leaking, you know, I always say it's like a pie chart. I can help you for sure with like the muscles that might be this much, but we've gotta optimize the cycle. Yeah. And so, long story short, I just created this like crazy awesome uh pelvic therapy model that just combines everything.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah. Well, and you haven't said the word, but it's holistic, is your approach to all of this, right? It's like you're looking at the whole picture here and not just treating the one symptom and trying to give somebody the quick fix. You're trying to really, like you said, be a detective and get to the root of the issue so that you can help somebody long term, not just short term. And I'm gonna like rewind back to when she was talking about the rib flare because for me personally, that's what I just learned I was experiencing. So she, Dr. Melissa is my doctor currently, and I went in saying I, you know, sometimes pee on myself just a little bit, and I'd like to get that fixed. I don't want to just be the woman that accepts that this is just, you know, one of the things that happens after you have a kid. I feel like so many moms do experience that, just a little bit of dribble of pee here and there, maybe when they sneeze or when they work out or whatever. And it's just like, oh, it's just normal. I'll just deal with it. It's just like part of part of it, a part of the journey of being a mom. And the other thing that I went in to see her for was I was having some annoying rib pain issues. It was really, really bad. And so that's what made me go, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go get some help for this. And when I went in to see Dr. Melissa, she was like, Yeah, you have rib flare. I'm like, what? So this is an actual thing. I have an actual problem. Something is wrong inside of my body physically right now. I'm not just complaining. This is not just, you know, a thing that's just gonna go away on its own. No, I needed to deal with it. And actually the rib flare and you know, the dribbling on pee on myself every once in a while, those two things are connected. Um, and then she's like, Do you have any neck pain or back pain? I'm like, Yes, all of it. Um, so she's like, I think we might be able to help you with those things too. So I felt like she was sort of the miracle doctor. Um, but I definitely left there just feeling like, wow, these are things, these are real issues, these are real problems, and all of them are connected. And that's just really not only interesting to me, I kind of nerd out when I have, I feel like I've like leveled up with my knowledge on just how our body functions a little bit. It's made me a whole lot more aware of how my body's moving throughout the day, even. Um, and the exercises that she's referring to that are running in the background, like she said, that's you know, you as the client, me doing those exercises. And it has paid off. And she also talked about the diaphragmatic breathing exercises and how that's usually where she starts. And I jokingly have said to my friends and family that I've talked to about how I'm going through this physical therapy process. I've said, so literally I was just breathing wrong. Like, who knew you could just be breathing wrong? And that could be, I mean, obviously that's not the only issue that I was having or the only thing causing it, but just the idea of you could you could literally just not be taking the right deep diaphragmatic breaths on a daily basis. And that could be impacting your back, you know, or just different pains that you might be having, um, the rib flare issue that I'm having. All of it's connected and it's just crazy. So after, I think after even like the first four or five days of me doing these exercises that she, you know, specifically prescribed to me, I already felt a difference. I already felt like my hand wasn't on my rib all the time anymore. I wasn't noticing it as often, if at all. Um, just just amazing. Great job. You're awesome. Okay. So um I've I've only just begun in. Journey with her, but I'm loving it already, seeing results already. So um the things that she's talking about today are very, very real, and the help and support that is available for you is very real as well. So if there is one thing that I hope that you take away from today, it's just that there is help out there for you, that there is support for you, that you don't just have to deal with it. I feel like we kind of just all go, oh, I'm just part of the wounded mom's club. And we just have these, you know, uh lingering issues after having a kid. Or maybe it's um, you know, in in the postpartum stage, like it was for me, where I started realizing that there was some issues. It wasn't necessarily, you know, while I was pregnant or before I was pregnant, but um certainly afterwards. And I'm happy to say that I will not just be dealing with these issues for the rest of my life. I will have them resolved thanks to Dr. Melissa. Oh, thank you. You're so welcome. So what are, I mean, you've kind of spoken to this already, I feel like, but what are some of maybe the most common issues that you see women coming in? Is it the um the the dribbles of pee? Is it the back and the neck pain, you know, complaints? What's the most common thing you treat?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I think everybody has some kind of back and neck pain, but if you think about back and neck doctors, you can sneeze and there's somebody that treats the back and the neck. So when people are looking for like pelvic floor, it's usually when there's like a multitude of things going on. Um, unfortunately, I think that a lot of providers all over the country, I've seen it here in town, you'll say you're leaking and they'll say, try this and come back in three months or six months. And so a lot of women are confused because they don't know that it could be a simple pelvic floor case for leakage. When I see people, because I am more of a like a pelvic pain specialist, and um I help women that it's the pain and the pelvic floor issues are really disrupting their life. So by the time they get to me, they may have tried these other therapies or seen other pelvic therapists. And so um probably about half my case load is chronic pain, um, pelvic pain, back pain, SI pain, vaginal pain, pain with sex, um, concerns over the birth and like how, like if they're pregnant, how these issues are going to play out in their ability to have a natural birth or a vaginal birth. So I would say that's like half my caseload. I've I have a lot of patients that have um like waited to be sexually active until marriage, and then it just didn't go like they thought. And maybe they're holding a lot of tension in their pelvic floor, either from just tight muscles, or there was some underlying thing like endometriosis that was driving it. And then probably the other half of my caseload, or maybe like 25%, is like uh weakness and um the leakage, the prolapse is a big one, and constipation is huge. So I think a lot of people don't think you can treat constipation without medication, but constipation is always, always, always a pelvic floor issue as well. So we have to treat it from the inside end.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

That's so interesting. You know, we're all over the all the girly groups on on social media, and I was just seeing a post in a group the other day randomly about uh a mama that was talking about some constipation issues and just basically saying, I'm desperate for help. What can I do? I've tried everything. I don't saying that the um, you know, the medication for constipation is not working, that kind of thing. Like, who knew? Right? Like I didn't know, I had no idea that that could potentially be a pelvic floor issue. Um, which is, you know, I remember that being one of the questions you asked me in our consult was about how am I pooping? Yeah, like that's a weird question.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Like I'm really getting into these personal questions here.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, but it is all connected. So yeah, I kind of just I kind of just feel like if you're a woman and you're having if she was pains, just go see Dr. Melissa. She's gonna get to the root of the issue.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah. And if you're listening to this and you're like, you're saying so many random things, but I can't conceptualize why it would be like I thought, I think a lot of people think it's it's the bladder, right? It's leakage after birth. Right. And that's what it gets kind of narrowed into. Sure. But the pelvic floor muscles, those muscles are holding up and supporting the um rectum, the uterus, and the bladder. So they're literally sitting inside your pelvic bowl. And then on the outside, the muscles go have three openings: the urethral opening where the pea comes out, the vaginal opening, and then the anal opening. So just by anatomical positioning and default, it's gonna control peeing, pooping, sex.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Your pelvic floor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah, your pelvic floor. So whenever I put together a treatment plan for um someone dealing with constipation, usually I will do internal pelvic floor therapy, and then we will do some dry needling potentially to the nerve roots that help relax the pelvic floor from the back, and then maybe into different areas. So we really are trying to support the whole outlet to just relax without just verbally telling you to relax and breathe harder on the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yes. Yes, yeah. And you say that I remember you bringing that up in our first conversation about this. You were like, so often, you know, we go to the doctor and we're told to just, you know, relax or um or to just uh go do some kegels because of your your lady issues. Um, and it's so much more than Kegels, right? I think that's one of the biggest things I remember you saying in our first consult. You were just like, it's not Kegels. And actually, for me personally, as one of your patients, it has nothing to do with Kegels, and I need no part of that. I need like the opposite of Kegels, whatever that is, she said. So um, yeah, so it's definitely not always just that you need Kegels. There could be a lot more going on, and actually that could be the opposite of what you need at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, I would say the majority of my patients don't need Kegels because Kegels tighten everything. And listen, if Kegels were gonna work, you would be sitting here doing Kegels right now and you would be recovered. Like it's it's it's well known that you know, you can go Google some videos on how to do Kegels and at least try. You know what I mean. I find myself on my little like high horse when I hear a new patient saying, Well, my OB gave me a sheet of exercises and they were just like 50 kegels in these different positions, and then I test their pelvic floor, and really the entire situation is that everything's overcompensating and won't let go, and then they've just been given a prescription for Kegels on top of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

And I'm so it's like it's already too tight, and they're being told to tighten it some more. Yeah. Yeah. Just craziness. Well, switching gears just a little bit, but what for you in, you know, you said that you weren't even planning on becoming a business owner. This is just where, you know, the universe has taken you. But what for you has been the hardest part about balancing all of it? Motherhood, business, all the things.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Oh gosh. Um, so when I first started my practice, it was definitely pre-children. And I was all into it. Um Patrick was working at uh like a staff therapist at the time. Patrick is her husband. Uh, yes, who now works with me at the clinic. Um, and I kind of had this like idea of like this is like a little hobby type thing, and I was gonna like do all this personal development, and I was doing like business trainings and making freebies and posting on social media and emailing. And I mean, I was just like always on my phone. Just I went hard and fast with it, probably burned me out quite a bit because it's not sustainable, right? Um, but then we ended up moving to Texas um after I had opened the practice, and then Patrick and I joined together in Texas, and we ended up adopting our baby, and it actually happened just like a lot faster than what the timeline was, and everything we were doing came to like a screeching halt because we didn't have child care. We had a huge caseload between the two of us at the time, and I was either always working in the clinic or I was taking care of my kid, and we were like just two ships passing in the night. And so once we decided we have to move back to Louisiana, we have to like get our priorities straight and we moved the clinic again. I have extremely strict like time boundaries now, and I can only do what I can do between these hours and these hours. And I would say, like, I used to have a lot more mental energy to like play on my phone in the evenings, but really I was like working on the email series or whatever. So I would say now that I have such strict um time blocking and like time boundaries, I had to like let some things go and not be this like always working perfectionist of trying to get a new freebie delivered or all the Instagram reels done. Cause I used to, I built my business initially on Instagram. Um, but lately I've kind of just slightly pulled back because I've just had to like let some energy come down so that I can be a mom with the two and a half year old that is pushing my buttons.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Well, that's what they're good at doing as a two-year-old. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, you know, kudos to you for having those really great time boundaries in place and time blocking things. Uh, because as a mom and as a business owner, those things are very important so that you can show up as the woman that you want to be in your business and as the mom that you want to be at home. So great job for having those boundaries in place. And um, I totally feel you on having a two-year-old that is pushing the buttons. I feel like she started for me, she started pushing the buttons at like 20 months old. I was like, we're already entering the quote terrible twos and we're not even there yet. What is happening? Yeah, full and crazy life all at the same time. But rewarding. Yep. Well, for any moms that are out there listening, going, you know, I've been dealing with this thing. I've been having this issue or this pain ever since I had a baby, and it's not that big a deal. I can handle it. What would you say to those moms out there that are just thinking, eh, it's no big deal. I'll just keep keep trucking along.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

I would say put on your oxygen mask because it's not about how much you can handle, because you probably can handle it, but I see burnout so much in the early postpartum or even just a year or two years, because we if you look at your phone, every conversation is about your kid. Everybody you talk to has a kid, and it's like you haven't done anything for you. And so I tell a lot of my patients, like, are you ready to put on the oxygen mask first? Because if you are, I got you. Um, you don't have to deal with those things. And I know some people think being in physical therapy has like some kind of a stigma, but I like to think, well, in my clinic, you get to be in physical therapy, like a little reframe. Like everything is about how you how you spin it and how you enter into a new journey. It's it can be the same journey entered in two different ways. You can be like, I'm here, I'm showing up, I'm doing this for me, or you can enter the journey as this really freaking sucks. I don't want to do this, but I guess I have to. Those are gonna produce very different results. And I think if you, you know, want to use the oxygen mask theory, I've never had a mom say, uh, shouldn't have done this. They've all been, you know, just so glad that they took care of themselves and you will be too.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yeah, 100%. Dr. Melissa was asking me questions about, you know, how my issues have impacted my life in one way or the other. And I'm sure there are plenty of moms out there that maybe they're super passionate about working out or something, and they just haven't been able to do the workout. So it's really affecting their livelihood and their passion for being physically active. And I am not that mom. For me, though, what it was about was just like, hey, when I'm sitting on the floor with my toddler playing during the day, I hate that I get like locked up in my ribs. I hate that I have to sit a certain way or avoid sitting a certain way to not feel pain when I'm sitting down playing with my toddler. And for me, that's really the only area of my life that it so say impacted, aside from just the, you know, the annoyance here and there of feeling it. But that was important enough for me because I believe in what she's saying and putting your oxygen mask on first. I am, you know, as a life coach, I would hope that I do believe in that kind of thing in taking care of yourself, but definitely prioritizing your own health is important. I mean, that sounds like a silly phrase to say out loud, but it is. I think we all I think as moms, we put it on the back burner. We take care of everybody else around us. We do a really great job of taking care of everybody else around us. And we just kind of put our own needs on the back burner and maybe tell ourselves, oh, I'll take care of that eventually, or oh, I'll go get that, you know, massage one day, or oh, I'll make that doctor's appointment one day. And then five years later, you're still dealing with the same thing or still struggling. And so let this episode today be the push, the gentle nudge, the the, you know, just the urge for you to go and take care of yourself, whatever that means for you, whatever issues you're currently dealing with, whether they be physical, they be mental, whatever kind of support you're seeking, it's out there, or whatever kind of support you need, rather, is out there. You just have to look for it and you have to ask around and ask the questions and don't just settle for dealing with it because you don't have to. Well, Melissa, this has been such a great conversation. I know that moms are probably walking away going, gosh, I've had all these issues and had no idea that this is what it was about. So I hope that your phone is blowing up or your booking app or whatever is blowing up after this episode. But where can people go to learn more about you, to book with you if they want to? Anything else that you'd like to share at this point?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah, so if you have pelvic pain or pelvic floor issues that are really disrupting your life in a way that, you know, you can't sit without thinking about it, you can't exercise, uh, you can't have sex or you're having bathroom problems. I got you. I would invite you to reach out and book a free, like 15-minute call just to see if this is a good fit for you. Um, I'll ask you a few questions and kind of see what's going on with your challenges. Um, that's the first place to start. So um, you can reach me a number of places. So my Instagram is Dr. Mel Thompson, my Facebook page is Louisiana Pelvic Health, and my website is LouisianaPelvic Health.com.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Awesome. And I will be sure to link all of those things up in the show notes for you guys. So be sure to go and connect with her and check out her business and work with her if you need her in your life. All right, well, Melissa, cheers to raising humans and building something meaningful. All right, mama. Well, thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you love being a listener. And if you do, share the show with a friend. It would mean the world to me. And if you heard something in today's episode and thought, oh wow, it's not just me. Or, wow, that's why I'm having these pains, please know that there's support out there for you, like Dr. Melissa, and you don't have to live like that anymore, nor should you. Take care of yourself, Mama. Until next time.