Sexual Dysfunction Therapy in Hollywood, FL
If sex hurts, or your body has stopped responding the way it used to, the pelvic floor is usually the part nobody has examined yet.
What is sexual dysfunction therapy?
Sexual dysfunction therapy is pelvic floor physical therapy aimed at the muscles, nerves and connective tissue that make arousal, sensation and orgasm possible. Those muscles do mechanical work. They have to contract, and they have to let go. When they hold tension all day, penetration hurts. When they cannot generate a contraction or sustain one, sensation drops off and control goes with it. Either pattern can sit behind pain during intimacy, difficulty finishing, or a body that has quietly stopped responding. Treatment here is one on one with a licensed pelvic health therapist, in a private room with the door closed, and it works on release, on strength, and on the coordination between the two. If you want the causes and symptoms laid out first, start with our page on sexual dysfunction.
In practice the work is graded and specific. Your therapist assesses how your pelvic floor actually moves, then trains what is missing: down-training for muscles that will not release, strength and endurance work for muscles that cannot hold, breath and pressure work so the pelvic floor and the abdominal wall stop working against each other. Some of that is hands on. Some of it is exercise you take home and repeat. None of it happens without being described to you first, and consent is continuous and yours. You can stop any part of a session, at any point, for any reason, and the plan adapts around that.
Who it's for.
This is for the person who has said the words out loud once, been told the exam looked normal, and left with nothing to do next. Pelvic floor therapy is worth a look whenever sex has changed and nobody has assessed the muscles involved.
Sex has hurt for months or years
You brace before it starts now, which makes it worse, which makes you brace harder. Pain with penetration, or the burning that lingers for hours afterward, usually traces back to pelvic floor muscles stuck in a guarding pattern they never came out of. That is the Pain phase of your plan: manual release and down-training, so the tissue lets go before anyone asks it to do anything else.
Sensation and control have dropped off
Nothing hurts. It has gone quiet instead, and finishing takes work it never used to take. A pelvic floor that cannot produce a strong contraction, or hold one, loses sensation and control together. Strength and endurance are trainable. We build them in the order your body can use, coordination first and then load, so the gains hold up outside the treatment room.
You were handed a prescription and nothing else
Three appointments, one refill, and no examination of the muscles that do the work. That is the story most people arrive with, and it is why so many of them start to believe the problem is imaginary. It is not. Florida is a direct-access state, so you can book an evaluation with a licensed pelvic health therapist here without a physician referral and get the physical side assessed properly.
What to expect in Hollywood.
Visits run 30 to 60 minutes, one on one, in a private treatment room. Here is the shape of a session, including the part most people are quietly worried about.
History, and what you want back
Your therapist asks about pain, timing, positions, medications, deliveries, surgeries and everything already tried. Then she asks what you want to be able to do again. Specifics are more useful here than a rating out of ten. Nothing gets written off as normal, and nothing gets treated as a personality trait.
Assessment, explained before it happens
A pelvic health assessment covers posture, breathing, hip and abdominal mechanics, and the pelvic floor itself. That last part may involve internal work, similar in exposure to a gynecology visit. It is described to you first, you say yes or no to it, and you can stop it partway through without explaining yourself.
Treatment, then the home program
The same visit usually includes hands-on release, guided exercise, and two or three things to practice at home. The home work is where most of the change happens between appointments. Before you leave, your therapist tells you plainly what the plan looks like for your case rather than for the average case.
Let your therapist know if you are pregnant, have had pelvic surgery or radiation, have an active infection or unexplained bleeding, or carry a history of sexual trauma. None of those rule out treatment, and the last one changes the pace, not the plan. It is also worth saying what this is not: this is physical therapy for muscles, nerves and tissue, not sex therapy or counseling. If talking work would help alongside it, your therapist will say so and can point you somewhere.
My wife and I can't thank Dr. Leslie enough for everything she's done for us.
Where to go next.
Sexual Health Therapy
Painful sex, arousal and function, and the muscle patterns underneath them.
Erectile Dysfunction
A blood-flow and muscle-function problem that responds to physical treatment.
Sexual Dysfunction
Pain, difficulty or loss of function, examined as a physical problem.