We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nidhi Sharma a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nidhi, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

The defining moment in my professional career (as a Pelvic Floor PT) was when I needed pelvic floor PT myself! Here’s my story:

I started PT school in 2002 , driven by my passion to help people. I soaked up all the information from 4 years of schooling and was ready to heal the world! One day, on my way to my clinical internship site, I had an accident and ended up with a fractured tailbone. I was told that there wasn’t much to be done and I just had to let it heal. After waiting for months, I continued to feel pain every time I sat down. I was given a steroid shot in my tailbone which did not help and was later told that I just had to live with this pain.

I started practicing as a physical therapist in 2009 and like most new graduates, I focused my practice on treating back, neck, knee pain etc. And even though I helped people with pain everyday, I could never help myself. My tailbone pain slowly spread and morphed into vaginal pain and urinary control problems. I was a 26 year old woman living in pain everyday and was never referred to a pelvic floor PT. Only solutions offered were more shots and then surgery to remove the tailbone altogether!

Many years later I met a physical therapist in one of my professional seminars who mentioned that she specialized in pelvic floor therapy and that I might benefit from it. I started seeing her later that week.

Pelvic floor therapy quite literally changed my life. Both physically and professionally. Not only did my tailbone pain improve but my urinary leakage resolved completely and within a few short weeks. Like I said, it changed my life – so much so that I signed up for my first course to get trained in pelvic floor physical therapy. This was a little more than a decade ago, and I haven’t looked back!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Women’s Health Physical Therapist and specialize in working with women during pregnancy, after childbirth, and the years beyond. I understand (through clinical and personal experience) how hard pregnancy and motherhood can be on a woman’s body. My passion is to empower women to prevent problems before they happen, know when (and how) to get the care, and always feel at home in their bodies. I own a physical therapy practice in Mamaroneck NY. Along with helping women in my clinic, I also speak at local libraries, childbirth education classes, and hospitals to debunk common myths and spread awareness about pelvic health.

It took me, a physical therapist, more than 4 years to discover that there was a specialty in my profession that dealt with the pelvis! On average, it takes 8-10 years for a pelvic pain patient to receive a diagnosis. 80% of women who come to me seeking help for prolapse and urinary/sexual problems after pregnancy have been searching for answers for years. Pelvic health is not only understudied, but also considered a taboo and too often dismissed as something “not real”!

I am here to change that.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The most important skill of any medical professional is their ability to listen to their patient. Like really listen. In today’s healthcare world, a typical consultation lasts about 5-15 minutes and the majority of care plan decisions are based on labs and tests. The art of listening to the patient and carefully analyzing their story is lost in this impersonal factory style model of care.

So many patients tell me that I was the first person who asked them their whole story, wanted to know what they thought of their pain and attempted to understand the person behind the diagnosis.

Two patients with the exact same diagnosis can have very different symptoms and most likely have very different lives. Successful treatment isn’t just about the patient’s diagnosis but also about their life, their goals, and their aspirations. Diagnosis makes most sense when placed in the jigsaw puzzle of a person’s life.

In Hippocrates words ““It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has”

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Absolutely! Physical therapy profession has it’s challenges but I can’t imagine being happier doing anything else. I get to help women feel empowered and good about their body, I help people who are in pain to get back to doing things they love,

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pelvisandbeyond.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pelvis.andbeyond/