Heal Pelvic Pain: The Proven Stretching, Strengthening, and Nutrition Program for Relieving Pain, Incontinence,& I.B.S, and Other Symptoms Without Surgery

I bought this book as a last ditch effort to try to help the excruciating pelvic/vaginal pain I'd been battling for over a year from pelvic floor disorder. I had the constant feeling of a UTI with negative labs. Physical therapy that provided some relief for short periods of time, and medication that did nothing whatsoever, had me feeling hopeless and depressed that I'd ever get better. Being in the medical field, I have done extensive research on ways to find relief, and none seemed to be the definitive answer. Then I purchased this book. I did the first part of the exercises for relaxation. Within 2 days, my pain was 90% gone! Within one week, I was completely pain free. This was a miracle for me. I am now 2 years out and completely pain free. I continue to do the exercises here and there and more consistently if I feel the "twinge" of pain starting if I over do my exercise routine. If anyone is reading this review and is at his/her wit's end with frustration over the pain and hopelessness of a pelvic floor disorder, please purchase this book. Amy goes into great detail with regard to diet, stress management, exercise and is very adamant about following the order in which the exercises are done, so this is fool proof! If you are struggling and want relief, please give this book a try. I can't say enough wonderful things about how life changing this was for me!

I have been a sufferer of pelvic pain for about 2.5 years now. I have gone through about 6 months of professional physical therapy (which reduced my symptoms by about 30%). I was looking for a way to handle this problem myself, as the physical therapy requires me to burn "sick time" three times a week, and it's not exactly cheap under my insurance plan. So, I purchased three books on Pelvic pain up here on Amazon. This one is clearly the best written, and the most comprehensive. This book covers all the bases including stretching, trigger point massage, exercise, and diet. The only thing I would consider missing is a chapter on relaxation methods. The good news for many men and women suffering from pelvic pain is that this book can help. The bad news is that this is not a quick fix. If you follow the author's routine for stretching, exercise, and massage you will spend about 2-3 hours a day on it. I'm about a month into the routine, and while I do feel it takes too much of my day, I AM beginning to see results. I expect to be in this for the long haul (6 months to a year) before the pain is gone completely. The regimen works. The question is, how badly do you want to get better? I just decided that Amy's regimen was going to be my new "hobby". Since I usually spend about 2 hours a day on various other hobbies, it was easy for me to find the time. If you have a lot of other hobbies you are not willing to give up, Amy's regimen may be too time demanding for you. Amy's stretching routine takes most of the time, but I feel the stretching is the key to recovery.......at least for me. Amy's regimen is designed to stretch and strengthen all of the muscles groups in the pelvic floor, and her illustrations are easy to follow. Something I felt my physical therapist did not cover very well. This is a great read, and (for many of you) will be the key to eliminating your pelvic pain symptoms. Highly recommended!

I had this book sitting on my Kindle shelf for too long, but when I finally got to read it I finished it in a very short time. It is a good primer on what causes pelvic pain and how to deal with it. The book is marvellous in that it explains why a lot of pelvic pain is due to muscular problems. It helped me overcome darker thoughts and fear for cancer and other threatening diseases. I have had pain for years, but it really got severe about 12 months ago. I had to stop exercising because the pain afterwards was so difficult to cope with - and it would last for days after even simple exercise. 6 months ago I found a physiotherapist who understood the problems really well, and his approach is very similar to Amy Stein's. It has helped a lot, and I am now almost pain free and back to exercising 4 times a week. Amy Stein's stretching program did not work for me. The exercises in the book actually made things worse when I tried to follow it. But that only shows how a program should be individually tailored, so talk to your therapist if you need help. I now stretch 30 minutes before every workout (even before warming up). Moving the stretch routine from after to before exercise has made it much more efficient. I spend 1-5 minutes on each exercise (most on the buttocks/glutes because they are more problematic for me). I do not stretch on days when I don't exercise, so I do 4x30 minutes per week now. I have not really used the self massage techniques, although I am certain they will help if you can find ways to incorporate them into your routine. When I was in pain, I tried to stretch every day, and it does work. Getting the larger muscles under control was really important for me, and it relieved a lot of the pain. I warmly recommend this book. I wish I had read it much sooner.

Just wanted to thank everyone who left a positive review here... your success stories and advice was way more helpful to me than the countless doctors I saw! I wanted to add to more hope and help with my own story. The best thing this book did for me was give me hope and introduced me to the idea that all of my discomfort (and I mean bladder, urethra, and anal discomfort) can simply be tight, shortened muscles... just like tight neck muscles cause neck pain and tight back muscles cause back pain. It made sense to me because the pain began after a very stressful time. Still, just in case, I cut so many things out of my diet to see if it made a difference. But it didn't and I just ended up losing too much weight. I thought maybe this whole pelvic floor theory is too good to be true...but I started doing the exercises because it was my only source of hope. The progress was slow at first but I noticed after doing the exercises once a day for 3 months...the urethral pain started improving!! ...with less pain, frequency & burning. But i still had rectal discomfort and pain in the buttox also causing constipation and problems passing stool. All of the symptoms were causing me panic attacks...it was terrifying to me and I received very little help from doctors. After a ridiculous & agonizing 3 month wait to see a pelvic rehab therapist I was skeptical when i finally got in to see her. But she was AMAZING. She evaluated my muscles and was certain tightness and stress & anxiety was to blame. There is a mental component here folks... some of us hold our stress & emotional pain in our pelvic floor! You need to let stuff go...breathe through it and relax and let go. Despite not wanting to take meds, I reluctantly started on an SSRI and clonazepam to help with panic attacks (and break the panic/tight muscle/panic cycle) and went to PT once a week and did the targeted exercises she gave me every day. The key was internal vaginal massage!! After the very FIRST visit I felt much less pressure in the muscles around the rectum & urethra. ..it was such a relief! So i taught my husband how to do it using this book and Isa Hererra's book. After maybe 3 months of physical therapy and doing the internal vaginal massage 2- 3 days/week at home...I was 95% better! After the amount of pain and constant discomfort I was in, I never would've believed I could heal within 6 months. I'm off all meds now and feel great emotionally & physically. I feel so incredibly thankful and grateful that I discovered that the pelvic floor is KEY in healing. There was nothing ever wrong with my bladder or intestines or any other organs. It is JUST TIGHT, SHORTENED, AND SPASMING muscles... nothing that can't get better!! Treat yourself and get massage and acupuncture and psychotherapy if you can... they helped me to emotionally & physically heal, along with doing the PT. I also highly recommend foam rolling...so easy and inexpensive and effective at lengthening those muscles. Pelvic pain hit me so hard and ripped my center away... but ultimately the knowledge and resources I acquired has been so empowering and Im not scared anymore. If i ever get this pain again...I know what it is and I know what to do! Thank you to Amy Stein for introducing this idea to me and leading me to see a pelvic rehab therapist... saved my life!

This book came to me via a recommendation from my urologist and physical therapist, neither of who have actually read it. I've been dealing with chronic pain for about 20 years, and in that time, I've done a lot to educate myself. As a result, I already knew much of what I found in the book. If the reader has recently been diagnosed and knows little or nothing about pelvic pain, the book could prove to be insightful. The first couple of chapters are excellent. Amy Stein does a good job of explaining what pelvic pain is, which conditions make up pelvic pain syndromes, and how the conditions feed off of each other to create even more problems such as shortened muscle structures, spasms, and pain. It all makes sense, and I've never found such a concise yet comprehensive explanation of this type of pain. I think it's ambitious, though, to say that following the plan in the book will heal pelvic pain. It might diminish the pain and bring some relief, but healing is something else all together. The exercise plan is made up of exercises I have done for many years, and yet, my pain has never improved. The book claims to include nutritional advice, but it is scant information, at best. Stein's book relies heavily on exercise as the course to healing, but I know many people who have not found relief this way, myself among them. Reading further and doing some calculating, Stein's plan requires the patient to exercise at least 90 minutes a day in order to get in all of the stretching and strengthening exercises, plus an hour of cardio. Frankly, I don't believe that is realistic. Do people with normal lives really have 90 minutes or more for daily exercise, plus an additional 30 minutes or more for meditation? Don't they work or have families? With the exception of the helpful information in the first two chapters, a lot of the non-exercise related information is very general and superficial in scope. As for the exercise chapters, you could benefit just as much from exercising with a yoga DVD of the gentle/restorative or pregnancy genre.

About 9 months ago I began dealing with a digestive issue that later would be identified as being caused by pelvic floor dysfunction. Although I worked with two wonderful doctors and a physical therapist this book is an excellent supplement. Most of the information in this book is exactly what my physical therapist recommended - especially diet, breathing, posture, and stress reduction so I believe that the information in this book to be medically accurate. I downloaded the kindle version of this book. The book has 12 chapters plus appendixes with additional resources and information. The chapters deal with a range of topics including an overview of the causes and signs of pelvic floor dysfunction, diet, strengthening the muscles, and information for specific groups such as pregnant women, men, and children. Most the chapters are short and concise. Reading and re-reading some passages has been especially helpful in remembering some things that I learned in physical therapy. My only issue is that some of the information seems vague after what I learned in physical therapy but that is precisely why this book is only a supplement - something the author makes clear. Lastly, when it comes to viewing some of the exercise directions and the accompanying pictures the kindle version makes it difficult but the experience is tolerable. If you have pelvic pain, please work with your doctors to determine that there is not an infection or other problem causing it. However, if it is determined that it is a muscle problem, this book, in addition to other treatments like physical therapy, may help you get where you need to be.

I think she could spend more time in the book about diaphragmatic breathing and how it relates to pelvic floor function.

This book proved to me that what all my Dr's called "Prostatitis" was actually a weak pelvic floor issue that required relaxing and de-stressing parts of my body I'd never paid attention to. At the end of last summer, I started to experience weird body pains and other symptoms: pain in the middle of my butt, pain in the testicles, a really slow stream when I urinated, which turned into an increasing need to urinate and a burning sensation when I did. Doctor after doctor - both GPs and Urologists - all insisted that I had a bacterial infection that required antibiotics. When none worked, they arrived at the conclusion that I had "chronic non-bacterial prostatitis." More drugs were prescribed, and eventually surgery was suggested to remove a portion of my prostate. Even then, my Dr's said I'd probably live with pain for the rest of my life. After six months of pain, and consistent scouring the internet for clues, and I finally arrived on this book (as well as "A Headache in the Pelvis", which I also recommend). Before going under the knife, I decided to read this. The exercises described here changed everything. Within a month of doing them twice a day, my symptoms started to lessen. Within two months, they were essentially non-existent. Within three months, totally gone. I'm a runner and a cyclist, and I learned that most of the pain I felt came from stressing all the muscles in my pelvic floor, which created a cascading effect. Add to that having a day job that requires sitting at a desk, which is also terrible for your pelvic floor. I now do these exercises a few times a week, and after most intense exercise, to make sure I don't over-stress this incredibly important system of muscles that no one teaches us to understand. Prostatitis, IC, weak bladder, etc. are all conditions that exist, but they are knee-jerk diagnoses from many doctors who don't understand physical therapy, holistic treatment, trigger point therapy, or musculoskeletal issues. They are not incentivized to treat a system, only the symptoms, and they are definitely incentivized to prescribe drugs and promote surgery. If you've received a diagnosis of any of these, and you are pulling your hair out because of the discomfort and lack of progress, please try this book. It could very possibly change everything for you. It did for me.