Sneha Physical Therapy

Parenting Differently: You Don’t Have to Be Your Father

7/22/2020

Guest Post: Justin Lioi, LCSW

I meet a lot of dads or soon to be dads who are very worried they don’t have what it takes to be a “good father” because their dad wasn’t one. They’re not sure how to start parenting differently from how they were parented. It’s not uncommon to feel stuck in a way of doing something because it’s the only way you’ve known, but wanting to make a change and being aware of an unwanted model is the first step.

Putting PPD Behind Me

7/14/2020

Guest Post: Paige Bellenbaum

In the middle of the night on June 16th, 2006, when contractions were 3 minutes apart, my husband and I rushed to the hospital to finally meet our son Max. After 18 hours of a physically and emotionally traumatic delivery, I was so exhausted when they put Max on my chest for the very first time, that all I could think about was eating a hamburger and sleeping. I didn’t feel that immediate unconditional love that you’re “supposed” to feel when you meet your baby for the first time. I wanted him off me and I just wanted to be alone. The next morning, at 8 AM, after receiving neither a hamburger or sleep, we were discharged from the hospital – out the door with a pat on the back from our doctor and a newborn, who was now our permanent responsibility.

A Life Lived With Anxiety… Is Just Plain Exhausting

7/9/2020

Guest Post: Dr. Teralyn Sell

Your worry and fatigue get the best of you just about every day. The stress and anxiety is through the roof and your sleep is suffering. You’ve possibly been prescribed a number of different antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications and nothing changes. Or medication makes you feel worse and you struggle with side effects or are in a constant state of guessing what medication and dose to use. Most people don't even realize that there are natural healthy ways to improve the health of your brain which ultimately improves your mental health. In my opinion, it all starts with the brain and neurochemistry. Basically without our brain we wouldn't even exist!

Care for Down There! A Guide to Loving Your Pelvic Floor After Birth.

6/24/2020

Coauthor: Ashley Brichter

I am pleased to collaborate with Birth Smarter’s founder Ashley Brichter! We love that the pelvic floor is becoming such a “hot button” topic for pregnant people and perinatal practitioners. Here we dive into some essentials on pelvic floor recovery after birth, from pelvic floor PT and childbirth educator perspectives.

How Can You Support Your Immune Health?

6/15/2020

Guest Post: By Christiane Siebert, DACM, LAc

Why do some people get sick and others don’t? That’s a question we keep asking ourselves, especially during the current coronavirus pandemic. Not everyone coming into contact with this pathogen develops COVID. While a small number of people may become very ill or even die, others develop only mild symptoms or don’t even notice that they were infected. Admittedly, we still have much to learn about this virus and how it interacts with our bodies, but we already know that a healthy immune response gives us a leg up fending off viruses, bacteria and other pathogenic microbes.

Physical Therapy International Service Foundation

6/5/2020

Dr. Sneha Gazi, PT, DPT is the cofounder and Board of Director of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Physical Therapy International Service Foundation (PTIS). She initially envisioned the idea of PTIS while in her DPT program studying to become a physical therapist. She wanted to see a world where physical therapy wasn't only a luxury service but was accessible to underserved communities free of cost all over the world. She recruited Dr. Maria Muto who was a fellow student in her DPT program, and together they registered PTIS as a nonprofit organization. Below is information on PTIS' mission and work.

Fit As A Fiddle - Podcast

6/2/2020

"Fit As Fiddle" is a health and wellness podcast hosted by Dr. Sneha Gazi, PT, DPT. If you want the "in" on your health, search no further. This podcast brings you top tips from experts in many fields of health and wellness. Grow with our community as you learn how to enhance your overall physical and mental wellbeing. You can listen to each episode by searching "Fit As A Fiddle" everywhere you find your podcasts (Ex. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast, iHeart Radio, etc.)

Read more for a description of our first ten episodes.

Jaw Pain

12/3/2019

Does your jaw hurt? Does it hurt to chew gum or yawn? Does the pain sometimes radiate up to your temples and give you a headache or ringing in your ears? Maybe you hear popping or clicking in the jaw? While there are several reasons for these symptoms, more likely than not, you are experiencing something called Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD).

New Momma Tips

11/12/2019

“I’m having neck and shoulder pain breastfeeding my baby.”
“Every time I pick up my baby, my back kills!”
These are a few of the many complaints I hear from my new mommas. They want to learn how to move their bodies in a better way but they are not sure how. They want to reduce pain and increase strength. Here are some quick and easy tips I teach them for these complaints.

A Pain in the Neck

11/5/2019

Raise your hand if you’ve had pain in the neck of some kind before. No I don’t mean your little brother. I mean the pain that you might get when you wake up in the morning having slept in a weird position, or the whiplash after a car accident or roller coaster ride, or the one that gets worse when you sit at work stressed all day long… Yes, I sense your hand went up for one or more of those.

Women's Health Postpartum

10/16/2019

The pelvic floor supports your body before, during, and after pregnancy. It is an incredibly important part of postpartum recovery but very few women know about it. Even less receive pelvic floor therapy. I wrote for After Third, a company that helps new, expecting, and attempting parents find support by connecting them to professionals in the birth world. Here I help people learn about the pelvic floor and gain tips on how to start caring for the pelvic floor postpartum.

Prolapse

10/9/2019

What happens when 10 kids jump on an already loose trampoline for a very long time? Not sure if the trampoline will hold up those kids for much longer. Possibly, the kids could fall through. This is an analogy for what a pelvic organ prolapse could look like. The 10 jumping kids are the weight of your body and the pressure you exert from coughing/sneezing/lifting. The trampoline fabric is your pelvic floor structures that hold up the jumping kids: muscles, fascia, ligaments, and more. When the pelvic floor is compromised, its supportive function is lost. Gravity takes over and organs can descend.

C-Sections & Scars

9/10/2019

Have you had a C-section or thinking about electing to have one over a vaginal delivery? The most important thing to do is to educate yourself on its implications along with the guaranteed byproduct of the surgery: the scar itself! C-section scar management might be overlooked with all the responsibilities that come with a new baby.

Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

8/13/2019

I love talking about the pelvic floor. Why? Because not many people are and it’s a big reason we may miss out on providing great care to our patients. Here’s an article I wrote for IAOM-US, a collaborating partner, on why all clinicians should learn about the pelvic floor. Included are important statistics and barriers that we are facing in managing people with pelvic floor dysfunction. My audience here is for health care professionals, especially physical therapists and occupational therapists. But there is important information to build awareness for all patients and clinicians. Enjoy!

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

8/6/2019

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a group of genetic, inheritable connective tissue disorders that affects many parts of the body. It involves varying degrees of excessive joint mobility and skin fragility and extensibility. Because of the vast spectrum of EDS, some of us may walk around without a clue that it exists, maybe only easily bruised, while others may have life threatening conditions.

Strengthening

7/16/2019

What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of “muscle strengthening.” Weights? Powerlifting? Resistance? Well, there are two major ways to strengthen your muscles: “anaerobic” and “aerobic” exercise. What you may have thought of first falls under “anaerobic” exercise: intense levels of activity with high resistance for short durations. Aerobic exercise involves moderate levels of activity at lower resistance for longer durations, like running a marathon or swimming laps. Why is this important? Because we need a balance of both types of strengthening to maintain healthy muscles for different activities throughout life.

Diastasis Rectus Abdominis

7/16/2019

Every single one of us has a six-pack muscle. Whether it is clearly defined or not is a different issue. It is called the Rectus Abdominis (RA). Underneath the RA are your obliques and then your deepest abdominal muscle called the Transversus Abdominis (TA). Diastasis Rectus Abdominis (DRA) is the separation of the RA muscle. It happens routinely during and after pregnancy, but can also happen in males and females of all ages with obesity.

Stretching

7/9/2019

Do you wake up in the morning, yawn, bend your body side to side, and then start your day? Do you reach for your toes, reach for the sky, then starting jogging? Maybe you finish an intense workout and spend 20 minutes stretching afterward. Regardless of what category you fall in, many of you have stretched at some point or another. Maybe you didn’t know why you were doing it or how exactly to do it. Here are some must-read tips on why and how to stretch, along with some of my favorite time-saver stretches!

Mother's Thumb

7/2/2019

Mother’s Thumb, Gamer’s Thumb, De Quervain’s Disease (DQD) or Tenosynovitis are all similar terms for a specific type of pain around the back of the thumb and thumb-side of the wrist. It is called Mother’s or Gamer’s Thumb because it is caused by repetitive motions of moms picking up their infants underneath the armpit or gamers playing with a controller. The pain can also happen when opening a jar, lifting weights, wringing a towel, typing, texting, and more.

Breathe.

6/25/2019

First my stomach. Intense tingling, I mean fire burning-type intense, in the left base of my belly. Then my chest went numb. Then my lips were uncontrollably quivering. Can’t stop won’t stop, I thought. (“Is this the whole chakra thing?”) The instructor said to treat it like you were in the middle of getting your teeth pulled out. Don’t stop midway… just keep going. So I kept breathing.

Tennis Elbow

6/18/2019

With your left arm bent slightly, find the pointy end of the elbow with your right hand. Then move your right index finger about an inch towards the outer side of your arm bone. This pointy outer part is called the “lateral epicondyle” and is a place where many muscles that cross through your forearm, wrist, and hand attach to. When you have pain here, you might be experiencing tennis elbow, also known as lateral epicondylitis or lateral elbow tendinosis.

Workplace Posture & Sitting

6/11/2019

I sense some ears are perking up right now. This post is for all of you who spend most of your day sitting at a desk job. Following this 8-10 hour work day, you sometimes sit at a bar stool during happy hour and then mostly sit at the dining table or couch at home. Sounds about right, huh?

Did you know that you are at a higher risk of DEATH in three years if you sit for 8-11 hours a day? Let me tell you why…

Ankylosing Spondylitis

5/28/2019

Some back pain is just back pain. We all suffer from it at some point. Strained a muscle from playing basketball? Slept in a weird position and woke up with a sore back? These types of things can happen to anyone.

While the majority of back pain is musculoskeletal in nature (meaning coming from muscular/bony origin), some of it can be from a larger condition. One type is an inflammatory condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).

Turf Toe

5/21/2019

Your big toe serves a function that is more important than you think. Seriously, we should all be very grateful that it does all that it does! Every time we take a step, an immense amount of pressure goes through our big toe as it bends and extends from our body weight. Now imagine that a 250lb football player puts most of his weight on one of his itty bitty toes. OUCH.

Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS)

5/14/2019

Knee pain is like the new back pain. Many people experience it in different ways. And let’s be honest, knee pain SUCKS because it affects our ability to walk, take the stairs, and run... making it a nightmare to get from place to place. One type of knee pain I see clinically on a day to day basis is Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS). Basically this means pain at the front of the knee (over, around, or under the kneecap).

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