Book Review By Jill Osborne, MA - November 24, 2009
"Ending Female Pain - A Woman's Manual " by Isa Herrera, MSPT is a ground breaking book for women with pelvic and sexual pain, containing dozens of easy, helpful exercises and tips that offer hope for patients with pelvic floor problems, vulvodynia, IC, etc. etc. This book gives you vital, easy and effective stretches, exercises and tips to help you take control and manage your pelvic pain symptoms.
Her discussion of pelvic anatomy is amazing. Yes, my friends, you will need to get a mirror. She'll walk you through an excellent and absolutely fascinating anatomy lesson so that you can see, with your own eyes, if your pelvic floor is tight, relaxed and/or if you're doing your reverse kegel or kegel exercises correctly.
She teaches you how to find and locate trigger points in your pelvic floor and, better yet, teaches you how to reduce those painful muscle knots. She offers massage tips that are easy and very effective at reducing adhesions around c-section and other surgery scars, including episiotomies. Her discussion of the vulva and vulvar skin techniques is probably the best I've ever read and, I humbly admit, better than our own on the ICN. Yes, we will be updating that information.
Using both pictures and diagrams, she offers a series of exercises and stretches for the relief of pelvic pain that I can't wait to try, including reverse kegel exercises, a GREAT series of exercises using pilates ball, several yoga stretches that I'm sure you probably haven't seen before yet are perfect for stretching out the pelvis, upper legs and lower back and several foam rolling techniques.
For those of you, like me, who work at a computer or at a desk all day and struggle with back and tooshie discomfort, she offers something that I've waited for years for... a series of easy, discrete stretches you can do at work to help you reduce muscle stress and tension. I wish I had had this years ago because I can't tell you how much pelvic pain I've had at the end of some work days.
But, what makes this book truly unique and, I think, a must read for anyone with IC and pelvic pain, is her practical discussion of sex and how to reduce discomfort. Her tips are superb.. from performing a reverse kegel exercise before intimacy to help reduce pelvic floor tension, to using vaginal dilators for patients with vaginismus to a very unusual and obviously effective "vaginal steam" that can help make intimacy more comfortable.
Now Available in the ICN Shop at:
http://www.icnsales.com/product.php?productid=373
