Austin Women Magazine Article
This month's Austin Woman magazine has an article featuring our Dr. Elizabeth Houser and Dr. Melody Denson covering pelvic issues for women. Here is a brief excerpt with a link to the entire article available online.
Sometime during our cultural evolution the pelvic floor and its functions became taboo. Despite the fact that everyone urinates, defecates, has (or will have, when mature) sex and women continue to give birth, discussion or even reference to the pelvis and its contents has been deemed improper, gauche or downright lewd. While boys and men banter about their “members” with all too much bravado, it’s been distinctly “unladylike” for women to even mention their own body parts by proper names. Many women are so unaccustomed to looking at, touching, and heaven forbid, enjoying the pleasures of their own bodies that they have trouble acknowledging and then articulating when something is wrong. Adding to the problem is that, until recently, doctors were men who were equally uncomfortable discussing the functions of the female pelvis beyond childbearing and eliminating. So with no clear knowledge of their own bodies and no one to turn to for help, women have suffered in silence as they’ve “leaked” when they laughed, as their internal pelvic organs protrude to the outside, when they can no longer feel their husbands during intercourse or when the mere thought of intercourse causes searing pain to emanate from their pelvises. Ladies, suffer no more. There is help for pelvic floor disorders.
Ruth* had stress incontinence. After her husband had a second stroke, he had right side paralysis and Ruth assumed full care of him, including sitting him up in bed, transporting him in and out of his wheelchair and lifting his wheelchair in and out of their van.
“I knew that I had to do something. I hated wearing the protective garments and yet, I was leaking more and more. This year, I realized that my husband is getting better and we have many years left together. I didn’t want to spend them leaking this way. I asked my doctor for help and he referred me to Dr. Houser.”
Elizabeth Houser, MD is an urologist with The Urology Team. “Women must understand that there are effective treatments available for incontinence,” says Houser. “Leaking urine is not a normal part of aging.”
Ruth had started on physical therapy to strengthen her pelvic floor muscles, but found the treatments uncomfortable. “I was really uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassed by the treatments. Additionally, I had to have therapy several times a week. Adding that to my husband’s therapies just got to be too much. I opted to have surgery to fix the problem once and for all.”
“Surgery is a very appropriate option for the treatment of stress incontinence when other treatment modalities fail or are unacceptable to the patient,” explains Melody Denson, MD, urologist with The Urology Team. “Whenever possible, we try to utilize other treatments so that patients are not exposed to the potential risks of surgery. But sometimes it’s just the best option.”
Denson was instrumental in compiling patient educational booklets describing the causes and treatments of overactive bladder, urge and stress incontinence, as well as pelvic floor prolapse for patients of The Urology Team. “When approaching urologic problems, you have to not only look at physical signs and symptoms, but also at what patients themselves may be doing in their lives that may be exacerbating their problems. Many times we can make lifestyle changes and do physical therapy and make significant changes in a person’s condition.”
The complete article can be found here: http://www.austinwomanmagazine.com/Articles/2009/10_OCT/36_Health.html
And a digital PDF version of Austin Woman magazine can be found here: http://www.mydigitalpublication.com/publication?m=1837&l=1