Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Melissa Thompson.
Hi Dr. Thompson, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi, I’m Dr. Melissa! Throughout my adult life, I have experienced pelvic pain and period issues that made me feel defeated. I went to practitioner after practitioner, including many medical doctors, and was usually given a set of “typical” exercises or told “don’t worry about it” when vulnerably sharing information about how this pain affects me. These cookie-cutter answers left me to continue to feel unsettled. This left me with the reality that there are NOT very many women’s health specialists who are trained to look at pelvic pain and period issues from the root cause. This means finding the actual driver of this pain and not just resorting to pills and telling you to relax.
This is what drew me to specialize in women’s health and period issues. I help women heal their pelvic pain and period issues from a root cause approach using pelvic floor physical therapy & period coaching strategies.
I started a clinic in Louisiana in 2020 and served more than 300 women with a revolutionary model of care. My programs include in-clinic visits, virtual visits, daily accountability support, and home programs delivered through an app.
My husband, who is also a Doctor of Physical Therapy specializing in injury rehab, and I are moving the clinic to The Woodlands, where we will have our grand opening in February 2023! I am providing the same women’s health service, and he is providing the orthopedic physical therapy service for injury rehab and dry needling. All sessions are in a boutique-style, one-on-one, private treatment model, where patients have 60 minutes with the therapist — which is typically unheard of!
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Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has certainly not been smooth along my journey. I initially started my practice at the height of the pandemic, which brought its own unique challenges. A year later Hurricane Ida completely devastated the town of Houma, where my clinic was located. It took almost an entire year for my patients to completely rebuild their homes. Many of my patients cut their therapy short and were not able to make it to the clinic due to road closures, rebuilding issues, job losses, and many other factors.
I knew that I had to do something different so these women could continue getting the care they needed despite the hurricane’s challenges. I developed hybrid treatment and online programs to continue serving my patients and clients in any capacity. These programs have developed into so much more than I ever expected. Our clinic is now fully utilizing the hybrid treatment model where patients have access to the PT during sessions and in between sessions through an app.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Flow Physical Therapy & Wellness?
I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy, specializing in the pelvic floor, a set of muscles in the pelvic region that controls our bladder, bowel, sexual function, and full body musculoskeletal health. Most people believe these muscles are only involved during pregnancy and after having a baby. However, they can become involved with many more conditions that are often overlooked, like low back pain, hip pain, and hormonal conditions such as endometriosis. Our pelvic health is something that constantly needs attending to as we transition through life’s hormonal changes, but many traditional medical models will often dismiss it. We know that 1 in 4 will experience painful penetration (pain with sexual function) at some point in their lives. Stress urinary incontinence (leaking pee) postpartum can persist for up to 18 months without treatment. The stats can go on and on. So why is the foundation of our pelvic health so commonly ignored? Why don’t more women have access to pelvic health specialty providers? It is my mission to be a voice of change for women to have a safe space to talk about these sensitive topics and receive the level of care they deserve.
My specialty area is working with patients with endometriosis, back pain, interstitial cystitis, trauma, painful penetration, pregnancy birth prep, postpartum recovery, and infertility. Patients can very commonly have what we call pelvic floor dysfunction, which is just a fancy way to say the pelvic floor muscles are not behaving the way they should. Figuring out WHY pelvic floor dysfunction is present and how to work with the whole body to heal is what I mean by figuring out the root cause. There can be influences from poor hip function, lumbar disc issues, poor pressure management, poor nutrition, stress, ankle mobility issues, cervical spine dysfunction, inflammation, poor period health, and many more. I have developed my clinic to be a root cause holistic practice, meaning we will be working together to figure out which of these root cause factors are contributing to your pelvic floor dysfunction in order to gain true lasting relief from your symptoms. When the root cause is missed, symptoms tend to return again and again.
My specialty training is in pelvic health physical therapy, pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise, manual therapy, and fertility awareness, and I use a combination of these to address the body fully and holistically. I use everything from lifestyle changes to fitness to corrective exercise rehab training and hands-on manual therapy. I have designed all of this in a revolutionary model of care with a combination of 1:1 clinic visits, virtual visits, daily accountability support, and home programs delivered through an app. This model allows you to have more flexibility in the schedule and saves you financially over the long run, in addition to expert guidance to keep you on track along your journey.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
My empathy is deeply developed from the personal experiences I’ve had and I can relate to my patients. Women share with me some of the most difficult and private issues with me, and once they see how calm I am and how much I care, they feel more comfortable having these discussions.
Women’s health issues can feel so isolating because most people, including practitioners, are not comfortable discussing them — in fact, many people laugh and make them into jokes. I believe these are serious issues impacting a woman’s quality of life and should be taken seriously.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.louisianapelvichealth.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/drmelthompson
- Other: https://mailchi.mp/e2ac8fc9e70f/x7htzq2oyd
Image Credits:
Lindsey
