EP 291: What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You About Pelvic Health

What Makes Stefanie Long with Concept Pelvic Health a Good Neighbor?

Ever wondered why doctors just tell you to "do your Kegels" when you mention leaking during exercise? Physical therapist Stefanie Long is on a mission to transform how we think about pelvic health—and it's about so much more than just Kegels.

Stefanie, founder of Concept Pelvic Health, reveals the deeply personal journey that led her to specialize in pelvic floor therapy. Despite early exposure during her training, she initially resisted the specialty until experiencing debilitating pelvic floor issues after childbirth. "When you go exercise and you're peeing your pants, you feel like you have to stop working out because you don't want to be embarrassed," she shares candidly. "You can't jump on trampolines, you're having pain with intercourse, and it's uncomfortable and it ruins marriages, it ruins lives."

What might surprise you is the broad range of patients who benefit from pelvic health therapy. While many associate it with pregnancy and postpartum care, Stefanie treats everyone from bedwetting children to seniors with incontinence—her oldest patient was 92 and successfully discontinued diaper use after treatment. She works closely with gynecologists, urologists, gastroenterologists, and chiropractors, noting that approximately 90% of women with low back pain also have pelvic floor issues.

The most powerful message Stefanie delivers is one of hope: "You don't have to just suck it up and deal with it for the rest of your life." Countless women silently accept pain and leaking as inevitable parts of womanhood, motherhood, or aging. Stefanie is changing that narrative one patient at a time. "You can jump on the trampoline, you can play with your kids, you can run again—you can do all of these things without pain and without leaking."

To learn more about Concept Pelvic Health go to:

 conceptpelvichealth.com

Concept Pelvic Health

817-393-7020

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Sophia Yvette.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast.
Are you in need of a pelvichealth center?
Well, one may be closer thanyou think.
Today I have the pleasure ofintroducing your good neighbor,
stephanie Long, with ConceptPelvic Health.
Stephanie, how are you today?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm doing excellent.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on and we are so
excited to learn all about youand your business.
Can you start off by tellingour listeners a little bit about
your company?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Sure.
So we are a pelvic floorphysical and occupational
therapy clinic.
We treat women who are havingissues when they laugh, cough,
sneeze, jump, run, go to thebathroom a million times today,
low back and hip pain, anythingfrom the midsection issues that

(01:00):
you may be having.
We also treat pediatrics.
So we treat that pelvic healthside of pediatrics, which is
your bedwetting issues,constipation issues, having
trouble potty training, typethings as well.
So that's, that's in general,what we do.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Now Stephanie.
How did you originally get intothis business?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
So that's actually kind of a funny story.
I've been a therapist now for17 years and, unlike most, uh,
physical therapists in the world, um, I was exposed to pelvic
health um all the way back inschool, which at that point in
time was completely unheard of.
Physical therapists at thatpoint didn't know about pelvic

(01:41):
health, physical therapy.
It was something that you hadto have been like randomly
coming across, and but my schooldid a one one hour lecture on
it and I thought, oh, that'd befun, let's, let's go and like
learn how to work with pregnantpatients.
And so I did.
I signed up for this clinicalcause.

(02:01):
She was there in the same town.
I split it with a, like asports medicine, like everybody,
every other physical therapistout there does.
And I got there and it wasn'tpregnant patients at all, it was
a lot of pelvic pain patients.
And so I was a little bitblindsided, um, where I was like
, oh wait, you do what where?

(02:22):
What are you kind of patientsare you working with?
By the end of it I thought, man, this is, this is cool.
I'm so glad that you do it, notme.
I don't think I want to do this.
So, keeping going down the line, one of my bosses was a pelvic
floor therapist.
She kept like nudging me in thedirection and I kept like
resisting it.

(02:42):
Nudging me in the direction andI kept like resisting it.
Um, and it wasn't until I had ababy and had a ton of issues
after that I really realized howmuch it impacts your life.
Um, you know, like when you goand you exercise and you're
peeing your pants, um, and youcan't, you feel like you have to
stop working out because youdon't want to be embarrassed.

(03:04):
You can't jump on trampolines.
Um, you can't.
You feel like you have to stopworking out because you don't
want to be embarrassed.
You can't jump on trampolines,you can't.
You're having pain in thepelvis region, like pain with
intercourse, and it'suncomfortable and it ruins
marriages, it ruins lives.
It's just a really embarrassingsituation.
And suddenly I'm a part of thisgroup and I had the benefit of

(03:24):
knowing that there was pelvicfloor therapy because, again, at
this point there's no Instagraminfluencers, there's no TikTok
at all, but I knew from myprevious experience that this
existed, so I sought one out andit changed my life.
And from there is when Idecided that I needed to help
other women.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
And what is the most common misconception you come
across in your industry?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I think that probably the biggest misconception is
that it's all just Kegels.
I mean we get that from doctors, people like lay people, people
in the community, like we'llhave doctors tell their patients
, or patients ask the doctorlike, hey, can I go to PT?
And they say, oh well, just doyour Kegels and you'll be fine.

(04:12):
And that's not what pelvicfloor therapy is.
Pelvic floor therapy is a mixof hands-on treatments.
It's a mix of, like nutritionand looking at you as a whole
system, because the pelvic floorconnects to so many different
things.
And looking at you as a wholesystem, because the pelvic floor
connects to so many differentthings.
It's a lot of functional rehab,the things that you're dealing

(04:34):
with.
We're working on those thingsso that you can better
coordinate the pelvic floor sothat it works well as a whole
system, and so very rarely do weactually use a Kegel for that.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Now we know marketing is the heart of every business.
How do you market your business?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
and who are your target clients.
So you would think again, likeI thought most of our clients
would be pregnant or like earlypostpartum.
But in fact I mean, those areclients, absolutely no doubt.
But we also have your pediatricside of things, right.
So that's anywhere betweenthree and 11.
We have the adolescent timeperiod that are dealing with,

(05:19):
like pain with tampon use, painwith intercourse, so they're not
pregnant because they can'teven have intercourse.
Then you do have the pregnancypostpartum.
But then we also have a verywide number of like 35 to 55
year olds as well.
So we kind of run the gambit ofwomen's, like just women's care
, from birth all the way throughthe end of your life.

(05:42):
My oldest patient was 92 andshe improved and she got better
and she no longer had to wear adiaper.
Uh, she chose to wear a pantyliner just because and we gave
it to her because she's 92.
And if she wants to, thenthat's fine.
Um, but who we market to isobviously gynecologists.
Um, those are a big uh referralfor us.

(06:04):
Um, we also we also look tourologists and
gastroenterologists as well.
We also look to urologists andgastroenterologists as well.
Chiropractors we work reallywell hand in hand with
chiropractic care.
A lot of times, these womenwith low back pain I think the
statistics is actually like90-ish percent of women with low
back pain are also havingpelvic floor issues, and so

(06:26):
where are these women going?
But the chiropractor andneither of us can treat
everything on our own, and soit's really nice balance to be
able to refer back and forth tothem so that we can have really
good holistic like care.
So that would be probably ourbiggest.
We talk, we.
I will talk to anybody, thoughIf somebody wants to know about

(06:46):
pelvic floor therapy and how itcan help, then I'm all for it.
We talked to CBD distributorsand I've had conversations with
realtors about their wives andthings like that.
So now.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Have you ever thought of had it being your own
podcast?

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh gosh, that would be adding so much more to my
plate that at this point in time, I am not ready to do and what
is one thing you would like ourlisteners today to remember
about concept pelvic health?
What I would like for thelisteners to know is that there

(07:26):
is help available, that youdon't have to deal with these
issues.
This is something that we aretaught from a pretty young age.
Is just something that happensto you and you have to just suck
it up and deal with it for therest of your life.
And that is not true.
You can jump on the trampoline,you can play with your kids,

(07:48):
you can run again.
You can do all of these thingswithout pain and without leaking
, and I just want, really,really want, people to know that
.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
And where can our listeners go to learn more about
Concept Pelvic Health?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
website is wwwconceptpelvichealthcom.
Our Instagram is atconcepttherapy, and those would
probably be the two biggestplaces you can look for us.
We're on Facebook as well, butthe two biggest ones are our
website and Instagram.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Well, Stephanie, I really appreciate you being on
the show.
We wish you and your businessthe best moving forward.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Thank you for listening to the good neighbor
podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go to GNP Friscocom.
That's GNPriscocom, or call469-221-9345.