Ring in the New Year with 20% savings on packages on Wellness Services and The Tide Strength Studio!

Save 20% on bundled sessions of our Wellness Services when purchased in January – these can be used at any time during the year. 

Our wellness session packages can be used for a combination of the following restorative services: 

• Cupping, soft tissue recovery, and visceral mobilization. 
• Dry Needling is offered as a separate package (the sessions are 15-minutes.) 
• Health coaching and Intimacy Coaching with Pelvic Experts (our NEW offering! Click here to learn more.) 
• Our “Heat Retreat” featuring a private room with our infrared sauna is offered as a separate package (sessions are 45 minutes)

Our January Specials

• Four Wellness 30-minute Session, regularly $375, now $300
• Four Wellness 60-minute Session, regularly $700, now $560
• Four Dry Needling 15-minute Session regularly $200, now $160
• Four Sauna Sessions, regularly $125, now $100
• Ten personal training sessions at The Tide Strength Studio, regularly priced at $650, now $520

To purchase Wellness and Dry Needling Packages, call the office at 603-580-4994 (x3 for Stratham and x2 for Dover) 

For Sauna packages, Purchase Online with code 20IN24

For personal training session at The Tide, Purchase Online with code 20IN24 or call 603-580-4494 x 5 or email us at tidesupport @ oceansidept.com for assistance.

The post January 2024 Specials! appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

Save the Date! Thursday, November 9 5-6pm at our Dover Office

Hip replacement surgery is a major life event that effects your body in many ways. The muscles of the pelvic floor are in relationship to entire skeletal system in a complex, interconnected way–and at Oceanside, this is our specialty.  

Whether you are considering the surgery, preparing for the procedure, or recovering, this workshop will give you a new appreciation for the process.  We will provide you with exercises and awareness you can begin to use right away. 

Our goal is to help you meet your goals for increased mobility and strength and to embrace the opportunities a new hip provides. Learn about pelvic-focused physical therapy and how we can complement your existing programs and help bring you to a new level of progress and healing. 

When: Thursday, November 9th, 5-6 PM

Where: Our location in Dover, NH, at 51 Webb Place, on the third floor in Suite 320  

This is a FREE workshop with no registration needed.

If you are interested in our services but are unable to attend this event, you don’t need a doctor’s referral before you schedule. We can handle the details once you call. Fill out our intake form OR call 603-580-4494 and Press 1 for Intake. 

The post Free Workshop: Joint Replacement and Healthy Hips appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

Save the Date!

Join the Oceanside team on May 18 from 4-7pm for our open house and wellness fair, as we show off our amazing new space in Dover! We’re offering FREE chair massages and a Strength Assessment with one of our trainers. Check out our 600 sqft Strength Studio, Infrared Sauna, and spa-like treatment rooms. Our physical therapists will be on hand to present information and answer your questions. Light snacks from Earth’s Harvest and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.

The post Open House and Wellness Fair appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

We will work with you to understand how this aspect could be helpful to your recovery or give you and your therapist important information to design a rehabilitation plan for you.  

Our therapists all have advanced training in order to perform internal assessments. We have doctorates in physical therapy and we have had hours of advanced training, certifications, mentoring and learning in pelvic floor issues and treatment.

Internal assessments and treatment are not quite the same as having a gynecological exam. During a pelvic exam, it may have felt like you were just there and not an active participant–do the test and tell me when it’s over so I hopefully don’t have to do this again for several years. This can lead to an experience that is anywhere from neutral to annoying to traumatic.

Our work is different. We work WITH you so you understand exactly what the purpose of the exam is, what will happen, and how you may feel. In fact, we need your feedback and communication about how you feel during internal work.  We do not use speculums and at every step of the exam you will be learning and communicating with your therapist. You are always in control and can terminate the exam at any time.

Why do we do internal exams?

The pelvic floor muscles and nerves run along your pelvic bones back to your tailbone.  BY palpating them through the vaginal or rectal canal, we can feel if these muscles are operating the way they should.

There is a normal contraction and relaxation that should occur with the breath and when you move. Is this happening well? At the right time? We can feel if they are thick or thin. You can tell us if they are tender or recreate your symptoms. We want you to be an active participant and we will explain all of our findings to you and why our suggested treatments can help with regards to what we found.

We can gather so many details, just as if you had a shoulder problem we would evaluate your rotator cuff muscles along with your arm, neck and spine movements. 

The pelvic floor is also very connected to the spine and hips and internal exams can help us evaluate how these elements may contribute to your spine or hip symptoms. 

What about internal treatments?

We often see patients who have a pelvic floor that is not working ideally. 

Many people–due to injury, our world, posture, trauma, the list goes on–have “tight” pelvic floor muscles. Imagine your fist is closed all the time. The muscles would get “tight” and blood flow would be compromised. Have you ever held too many groceries and your hand struggles to open after you put down the 5 bags? Now imagine that’s your pelvic floor. This often is a contributing factor to pain, leakage, prolapse and nerve injuries.

It also can happen as a protective response because of an injury or with back pain or hip tension. Just like you have “knots” in your shoulders, you can have these densities in your pelvic floor. We use various strategies to work on these areas and help the muscles and nerves return to a healthy function. We are trained to work internally to help these muscles “calm down.” Our intention is for you to feel your pelvic floor muscles move up and down with your breath and feel a resolution of your symptoms.

You should leave any session like this feeling like you fully understood the purpose of this session and what the plan will be going forward. Your therapist will tell you if they thought it was effective and how they will follow up to monitor if this is a successful strategy for your healing. Within 2-3 sessions, you will know if internal treatments are helpful. We do the same evaluation with any treatment we believe to be helpful.  

Please don’t avoid pelvic floor physical therapy out of fear of this type of treatment. We will always discuss what you need and if internal treatment is not for you, we will still be here for you and come up with a plan that works.  We are here to help you.

Not Sure If Pelvic Floor Therapy Is Right For You?

Schedule a 30-minute consultation with one of our expert therapists to learn more. We’ll hear your story and give you our best advice for moving forward and getting on the path to healing.

The post What is internal work and why do we do it? appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

At our practices in Stratham and Dover, we see around 600 patients per month, all of whom have some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction.

We are in-network with several insurances and out of network with others because it’s been such a challenge to work with insurance over the last several years because of under-coverage.

The postpartum period is such a critical window of health. If we can figure out a way to help people during this critical time, it will go such a long way in healthcare. 

We see so many people who have developed issues because of the lack of support during the postpartum period. The body has been through trauma–which is normal, even an uneventful delivery is tough on the body–where ligaments have stretched and muscles are damaged. We do heal from it, but without proper support and guidance, we don’t heal well.

Our culture simply doesn’t support postpartum healing and recovery. I would love to see New Hampshire at the forefront of changing this culture and demonstrating just how resilient people can be when they have proper support. Cultural beliefs around recovery are one barrier, but insurance coverage can also be a significant barrier to receiving care and support, and I believe we can change that. If people have access to coverage, not just for an injury or something wrong–and everyone has something wrong, that’s just how babies exit the body–then we can find support for postpartum parents.

If you think PT is already covered, it’s much more complicated than that.

I think back to my own experience. You’re at home two weeks after a fairly healthy, uncomplicated vaginal delivery. I had pretty significant tearing with one delivery, but not on the other. You bleed for a fairly long time at home and you’re just not sure of how to do anything. You’re in a state of survival just trying to help your baby. This is all new to you.

And your body is completely changed. It’s not working the way it did before. Most people have some degree of pain. There’s some leakage. You just don’t know what’s happening and all you do is just take care of the baby and not yourself.

The whole medical culture revolves around the baby’s health, which is fantastic, except that it should also support the birthing parent’s health.

I wish that someone had asked me how I was doing at two weeks, at four weeks. I wish there was somebody who could have helped me navigate how to position my body so it didn’t hurt. I was that somebody was there to just guide me through deciding when I was ready to do certain things.

For most people in this culture, we push through and do things before we’re ready, and the ramifications of that in the postpartum period can be pretty significant. 

We see people in our practice all the time with prolapse–which is a condition that can be helped but not cured–and the lifelong complications and potential costs of something like this are significant.

The critical window of postpartum is a window into that person’s health. This is when autoimmune conditions kick in, this is when cardiovascular conditions can kick up, and if you are able to have support in this time, it really transitions throughout your life. 

This is a time when you can neurologically reset so many conditions. And when we think about postpartum depression, the risk of not having support during this time is significant. If we can figure out a way to support people, it has to be done.

I think the ideal coverage would be something like three to six postpartum pelvic physical therapy visits, independent of symptoms. Pregnancy and delivery alone are injuries to the body. It just has to be coded that way. And we have to change the culture of making sure you go to your postpartum providers, and make it just part of insurance coverage, just like mental health and preventative healthcare is now in New Hampshire. That’s how the postpartum fourth trimester should be viewed.

It also needs to be covered appropriately. Not under-covered or covered under the cost that it should be. It needs to be covered equally across organizations–outpatient providers paid the same as hospitals, Medicaid paid the same as Anthem. It should be blanket covereage that’s covered well, so that providers can cover the costs of their business.

I would love to take all the insurances, but I would go out of business if I did. I can only take the few that actually do cover our costs of doing business, and I run a pretty efficient business. If I take Medicaid, United, Harvard Pilgrim, or some of the other plans, they don’t reimburse enough to cover the cost of admin, rent, and therapists. It’s under-coverage.

And even when you are in-network, high deductibles put postpartum care out of reach. They go to the hospital and it’s $300 per visit. They go to an outpatient provider and it might be $100-200 per visit, but either way it’s up to their deductible. It’s just another barrier where there should be coverage.

Even just a little more coverage in this time would go so far from a support and educational perspective. 

I urge everybody to reconsider how these conditions and how this postpartum time is covered for people who have just delivered a baby. It would be so great if New Hampshire could be on the forefront and we could say, “This is how it’s done. This is how you support people.”

And guess what? It doesn’t cost any more money in the long run.

*This transcript has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

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You are officially prescribed Strength Training for 2023!

You need it! Doctor’s orders.  

Side effects of this medicine include:

• Moving more easily
• Increased energy
• Faster healing
• Tying your shoes without grunting 
• Better sleep
• Reduced brain fog
• Decreased stiffness and pain
• Increased muscle tone
• With increased use additional effects are not limited to:
• Better sexual function
• Improved decision making
• Organizational skills 
• Fewer f*cks given about what others think

Strength training is good stress! It challenges the body to do more. When paired well with nourishment and recovery, your body will love you!

At Oceanside, our therapists are here to help you with injury, pain and symptoms but we don’t just want you to feel the symptoms go away, we want you to build a body and life that doesn’t allow symptoms to return and lets you really live!  

Our Strength Studio, The Tide, is for those who want to feel strong and they really want to have a knowledgeable trainer work with them to customize a program. Our therapists work closely with the trainers and they understand our patients. They understand hormones and training in conjunction with them. They understand people who have prolapse. They understand how to be gentle and progress slowly when pain has been a barrier. They get what a good program looks like and how to help you throughout the year prevent injury.  They also get athletes and Olympic lifting and are not afraid to help you lift heavy things!  

The people who are working with our trainers are able to put in the work, with support and accountability, and are finally feeling like it is all coming together.  This is the final piece of the puzzle. 

We are very excited to offer 1:1 training in both our Stratham and Dover locations AND flexible small group sessions in Dover. Build a community and your strength this year. Take this medicine in 2023!

Our personal training packages are 20% off in December with code DEC20. Book an assessment with Kristal or Max today!

The post Your Prescription for 2023? Strength Training appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

What is an Infrared Sauna:

A sauna is a small room designed to experience heat. A traditional sauna uses steam or flame-stoked heat to warm the air in the sauna but an infrared sauna uses infrared lamps to warm your body internally at much lower temperatures. Temperature readings of an infrared sauna typically are between 110-135º F. A traditional sauna falls between 150-195ºF.

Why does Oceanside have an infrared sauna?

There Are So Many Benefits!

Boosts Heart Health: 

• With an increase in heart rate and widening of blood vessels, a session mimics what can occur during exercise and over time can reduce blood pressure/
• This is not a substitute for regular exercise as fat burning does not occur

Helps Sore Muscles:

• Improved circulation can help speed muscle recovery 

Reduces Pain and Stiffness

Improves Skin Health: 

• sweating can help your body expel dirt, oils and other matter that deposits on the skin. Low light therapies like infrared sauna can be used to treat acne, psoriasis and eczema

Relaxation and Recovery:

• The warmth, the solitude and circulatory effects help bring your nervous system into a relaxed state and this is RECOVERY. Whether you are just working on managing stress, healing or workout recovery, time in the sauna does just that. 

Self Care:

• Use the room for meditation, solitude and quiet time for you. Use the area to stretch out and use the sauna. 

Tips for Sauna Use:

• Start slow. Start at 110ºF 10 min. How do you feel?
• Work up to 30 min
• Stay hydrated! Bring in water!
• Rinse off afterward. Take a shower when you go home to rinse off toxins that you sweat out. 

Risks:

• Do not use if you are pregnant
• If you are heat intolerant and or have neurological conditions please check with your doctor if this may be helpful for you

The post What are the benefits of an infrared sauna? appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

Your Apple Watch, Fitbit, Whoop, Oura Ring, Garmin or Polar smartwatch can all be really helpful. Understanding your personal data has been very useful and I personally have made changes but also have seen countless patients make big changes when they SEE what is happening in their body.

A device like this can really shed light into your sleep, stress, activity levels. You can also use it to track habits, cycles, patterns and then see how small changes show up in your body. Does an evening yoga program get you more deep sleep? Does that glass of wine affect your sleep? How is my stress at work, driving, at home, around different people. You cannot fake the data and it can be transformative.

Here is my take on the smartwatches:

1. Garmin- Winner. Any Garmin with a Body Battery. This allows real time day and night data. When we are working with you on how to provide a healing environment, your nervous system requires healthy stress and recovery. This allows us to see what your nervous system is doing in a 24 hr cycle. Huge! It also monitors sleep, activity, your cycle and a couple other baseline health metrics that we can track over time.

2. Oura Ring- Good stuff. I like the ring. It is really set it and forget it, good battery life and consistent data. This one is great for sleep. It dives deep into sleep but you can also do your cycle, temperature changes and for those who are overwhelmed by data, this is a good option. For the same reason, I find it limited.

3. Fit Bit- Most improved. It is best at tracking activity but has started to integrate solid information about sleep and other health metrics such as stress. I don’t find it as user-friendly for the other health metrics as the Garmin but with new features being added all the time this has become a very good option especially if you already have one.

4. Whoop- again it depends. For me, I really did not like the band. It was irritating, too tight and it did not have a watch feature which I liked= when I’m in session with patients. The data that the Whoop gathers and presents to you is quite thorough and easy to read but it is challenging to have real-time data and again the watch just really irritated me.

5. Apple Watch- Last place! This is more of a technology device than a health metric device. It does an okay job tracking overall activity goals but the other aspects such as stress sleep and HRV a fairly inaccurate and difficult to really analyze on a daily basis. So if you want the internet and a phone on your wrist this will be the best, if you really want to dive deep into your health get something else!

HRV is a measurement of how healthy your nervous system is. It is a great tool when you are trying to heal. Some of these devices claim to measure HRV but the devices listed about don’t all do it well at a gold standard level but some can be used to monitor trends in your own body. We can help you choose the one that works best for you and use use it to help your healing journey!

The post How Can Your Smartwatch Help You Heal? appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

Hope and Cristin have a conversation with Three River Farmers Alliance about why we emphasize food and nutrition as part of our holistic approach to health.

The post Why Where You Get Your Food Is Important appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.

Are you considering gender affirming surgery as a next step in your transition?

Finding and creating your team is super important to make sure you are fully supported throughout your journey. You might have already scoped out a surgeon to perform the operation, but have you sought out a pelvic floor physical therapist yet?

This kind of PT can look at your muscles in the perineal area to make sure everything is flexible, strong and moving well prior to this transition. The therapist will be able to help address issues in your pelvic floor before surgery so that it is in optimal condition upon recovery.

They can also help with concerns post-op should they occur. Bowel, bladder and sexual function issues are common and pelvic PT can work on these concerns at any stage of healing.

Seeing a pelvic PT can be game changing to help get the results you want from your gender affirming surgery. Please be an advocate for yourself and find a pelvic PT who can help you! 

If you want to learn more about how Oceanside Physical Therapy can support you in your transition, we offer consultation visits either in our office or virtually for $47.

The post What Does Pelvic PT Have To Do With Gender Affirming Surgery? appeared first on Oceanside Physical Therapy.