Why Women's Health Care Treats You In Isolation: Part 1 of 3

I’ll never forget when one of my clients told me about her previous postpartum experience after having her first baby.

She had diastasis recti which is an ab separation that oftentimes leads to low back pain. Her OBGYN referred her to a physical therapist for it.

While she was there for her evaluation, she told the physical therapist that she was having incontinence and wanted to work on that also so she could stop leaking.

That’s when she was told “oh, well you have to work with a pelvic floor therapist for that”.

So she did. She started working with both therapists and had appointments every week with both. Fast forward a few weeks and she wanted to start getting back into her exercise routine at the gym but didn’t know what to do or where to start with exercise.

And she was told by both therapists that neither of them could help her with that and she would need to work with a personal trainer in order to get back to exercise. Add the third weekly appointment and the third professional she was now working with in her postpartum recovery.

Then she told me that she chose to come to Revitalize after having her second baby because we could help with all of those issues together rather than treating each issue in isolation.

Continue Reading The Series: Read Part 2 Here →

It was the first time that I really saw the problem and understood the effects that it had on women. Not only did it mean seeing more providers but it then required more time and energy for these multiple appointments.

It also meant that each provider was working with one isolated part of the whole picture, unknowing if what they were doing was overlapping with another provider. And it also forced women to connect the dots themselves and be the sole coordinator of their health and wellness.

Once I saw the problem, I couldn’t unsee it. In fact, it made me even more aware of how many of our clients were dealing with a similar issue. Every issue treated in isolation and with a different provider. And every client was exhausted.

Exhausted with having even more put on their plate when it was already hard enough for them to prioritize helping themselves. Exhausted with trying to figure it out on their own. And exhausted because they still felt like they were missing something since things weren’t better.

Women’s health treats everything in isolation but the problem is that the body doesn’t work in isolation. The systems within the body are all connected and all influence each other. But as our traditional healthcare model has moved to greater specialization, it has only further created greater isolation between issues.

Add in declining insurance reimbursement and shorter and shorter visit times and providers no longer have the time needed to look at the whole picture, especially without a diagnostic tool to quickly figure out what is at the core for the set of issues a woman is dealing with.

Find Your Driver: Take The Core 6 Assessment →

I experienced this problem of isolated care firsthand during my own postpartum journey and it is so frustrating to not have the answers and correct solutions. In an effort to also figure out my own issues, I immersed myself in learning, researching, and lots of trial and error on myself.

What has come out of all of this is the development of a new model of care for women’s health.

One that will provide women with the first stop in their health journey.

One that will connect the dots to figure out what is causing the issues at the core.

And one that will put the right solutions in the right order in order to help women finally feel like themselves again.