Dr Trish Ridsdale attended an online conference on women’s health recently, organized by BurrellEducation. Their Holistic Core Restore trained coaches provide excellent support and education for women who have experienced some degree of pelvic floor, pelvic organ, back pain or core dysfunction and want to empower themselves through education and taking action so that they don’t become a chronic statistic. Dr Ridsdale believes in empowering patients to address their health issues and went along to check out latest research and teaching.
She developed rather square eyes over the 3 days of online lectures but was very grateful for the practical sessions, such as yoga for pelvic floor health. It highlighted just how important getting up and moving is when more of us are working from home at our desks for long hours.
Although the conference was mainly aimed at women’s health coaches, Pilates, yoga, physiotherapists and soft tissue therapists, there was something to learn from each presentation. Sessions on prolapse and diastasis provoked thoughts about correct advice to women from all health professionals, to try to avoid future health issues. Correct movement and fascial release have so much to offer women after childbirth or surgery. There was also an excellent presentation from women’s health coach and physiotherapist, Michelle Lyons, centered around support for women undergoing treatment for, and recovering from, breast cancer. A session on chronic pain and how the nervous system responds and rewires helped promote further discussion about why pain killers don’t work in chronic pain and may create other issues, and what other ways we may use to support and help patients.
Incontinence should not be normalized via TV adverts for products- there is so much that can be done to regain control before considering more drastic measures such as medication or surgery.
The main take home messages for all of us, (and not just women), were motion is lotion for the joints- move in all directions in ways that you enjoy, to keep flexibility and strength and, particularly for women, squats lunges and dead lifts are vital. Learning to move in safe ways to avoid injury and to ensure that exercise is done in the correct way to achieve the results that you seek is also vital. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate- our whole body and our mind works better when hydrated and look after gut health. Problems so often start in a dysbiotic, (the wrong balance of gut bacteria growing in our gut garden) gut, which leads to inflammation and poor absorption and processing of food. This may lead on to hormone imbalances affecting many more body systems.
Eat real food
Don’t eat sugar
Eat fibre
Good phrases around which to start a conversation about a personalized approach to health.