Weeks 1–2
Pain
Turn the alarm down.
Bladder habits, breathing and hands-on work settle an overworking, guarded system so it stops firing on false alarms.
What We Treat
Incontinence treatment in River Forest.
The sneeze. The trampoline. The sprint to the bathroom you almost don’t make. Leaking is common, and it is not something you have to manage forever with a pad. It starts with a cause-first evaluation, one-on-one in a private room with Dr. Rachel Richard.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- Crossing your legs before a sneeze without even deciding to
- Knowing where every bathroom is before you commit to the store, the walk or the flight
- Sitting out the trampoline, the jump rope, the last mile, the double-unders
- Pads in the glovebox, the gym bag and the desk drawer, restocked without comment
- Key in the front door and suddenly you are not going to make it down the hall
- Doing Kegels on and off for years and watching nothing change
Two or more? This has a cause, and causes get fixed. Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Leaking is a symptom. Something is causing it.
Leaking is not a bladder that turned on you. It is a pressure problem. Your pelvic floor, your deep core and your breathing are supposed to manage pressure as one system. When the timing is off, a cough or a jump or a laugh sends that pressure straight down instead. The floor can be too weak to hold it. It can also be too tight to react in time, which is why so many people do Kegels for years and get nowhere. Add scar tissue after a delivery or a surgery, hips that stopped pulling their weight, and the habit of going just in case, and the pattern sets.
You are the one who quietly handles everything, so you handled this too: a pad in the bag and a mental map of every bathroom. That was not weakness, it was triage. But a pad manages the symptom and never touches the cause. A cause-first evaluation tells you which part of the system is actually failing, and that answer changes the exercises completely. It happens one-on-one, in a private room, with Dr. Rachel Richard, who is Herman and Wallace trained through Pelvic Floor Level 2.
The Honest Truth
A pad manages the leak. It never fixes it.
If you keep waiting
- The map of safe bathrooms gets bigger and the list of things you will do gets smaller
- You drop the workouts that set it off, and the floor gets weaker for the lack of them
- Going just in case trains the bladder to ask sooner, and the urgency gets louder
If you start this week
- You find out by the end of visit one whether the floor is weak, tight, or just badly timed
- You get exercises for your body, corrected in the room, instead of a generic handout
- You get a plan with an endpoint: a real one, not an open tab of visits
You have managed this quietly for long enough. Saying it out loud once is the whole first step.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for the pelvic floor.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for leaking and urgency.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Teach the floor to react.
You learn to contract and fully release on purpose, then to time it with the cough, the lift and the laugh.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Load it like real life.
Strength through the floor, hips and deep core, progressed until it holds under lifting, running and jumping.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Stop thinking about it.
The workouts and the outings you dropped get tested before you’re finished, and you leave knowing how to hold the gains: that’s the endpoint, not just another appointment.
I worked for four months with Rachel Richard, pelvic floor therapist. She is amazing! Very kind, friendly, fun, and knowledgeable. We solved the problem that I came with, and I also learned some great exercises to keep me fit. I am planning to return for some “maintenance” here and there. At Elevate Physical Therapy you will get individualized approach and great specialists!
Shared by Elizaveta F. · Pelvic floor therapy
At the start: the problem she walked in with
By the end: solved, plus exercises she kept using to stay fit
Pelvic floor therapy
Four phases
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for leaking.
Sometimes, and often not. Kegels help when weakness is the problem. If your pelvic floor is already too tight, more squeezing can make things worse, which is why people do them for years and see nothing change. The evaluation tells us which one you are, and whether the timing is the real issue rather than the strength. Then you get exercises built for your body, taught one-on-one and corrected in the room, not guessed at from a handout.
No. There is no expiration date on this. Muscle responds to the right training whether the leaking started last year or decades ago, and being past childbearing or past menopause does not close the door. Waiting a long time before asking is the most ordinary thing in the world, because nobody talks about it. Nobody here will make you feel late.
You will see Dr. Rachel Richard, a Doctor of Physical Therapy who is Herman and Wallace trained through Pelvic Floor Level 2. One-on-one, in a private room, every visit. Illinois has direct access, so you do not need a physician referral to start. We are in network with Medicare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Tricare, Multiplan and all Workers Compensation.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon–Thu 7am–7pm · Fri 7am–5pm
- (708) 657-4038 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed in Illinois
5.0 · 120+ Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Elevate Physical Therapy and Fitness
- 7607 North Ave, River Forest, IL 60305 (opens in a new tab)
- (708) 657-4038
- Fax: (312) 312-9631
- info@elevateptaf.com
- Mon–Thu 7am–7pm · Fri 7am–5pm