Partnering Through Patients ~ Meet Dr. Lora Seacat

When medical professionals from all walks of life can come together, that’s when the real magic happens. A common misconception in the Chiropractic industry is that we stay in our corners, have our own completely separate ways of doing things and never associate or agree with anyone else in the health profession. I’m here to say that is an absolute lie. Some of my closest friends, colleagues, gym partners and inspirations find themselves in the health, wellness and medical field and I'm proud to walk alongside them. I’m honored to be able to refer to them, ask for help and introduce them to my clients.  

I became a Chiropractor to help others and if referring them somewhere and to someone who can help progress them on their healing journey is what I need to do, I have zero hesitations. 

Meet Dr. Lora Seacat. We formed a relationship and we've been collaborating and working together for a little while now! We've been able to bring both of our minds together and help really give some different perspectives, but with the same mindset of helping patients heal.

We’re giving you a little conversational Blog this week in telling our stories and what we bring to the table and we hope you enjoy! 

Lora Seacat:

 I really appreciate having somebody like her (Dr. Kelli) on my team in the sense of it's just good to have another perspective, another set of eyes that can be looking at things that she knows as a Chiropractor, and then things that I know as a physical therapist. Being able to let the patient go and live their life and really just go be a mom and take care of your family and not have to worry about having pain.

Kelli:

Yeah. Being able to pick up your kid without having issues and all of the things that come along with that.

I think the most fun part for me is that we get to team up FOR the patient and both be a resource for them, but also be able to talk to each other and then that patient knows we’re working to help better them together. She feels like she has a team and that's cool because all moms need a team after they've had a kid or during pregnancy.

Lora Seacat:

And they need self-care.

Kelli:

Yeah.

Lora Seacat:

They don't have time to take care of themselves and we know that they don't have time to come to 100 different appointments, but even collaborating together helps the patient get better more quickly and then they can go back to living their life. That's the whole point. We don't want you to have to keep coming into the office, but we're here if you need us.

Kelli:

Right!! I think that's the big thing. For me, there's a lot of things that I can't do, that you can do. So, you do the internal work obviously. That is a big piece of it, and that's something I needed after my kids, especially after the second one. But also it’s not just for young moms. I recently had an older lady come in and ask, "What can I do for a leaky bladder?” And I'm like, "Well, I could tell you some things to do. But are you going to do them?" And so I have to now because you're here, I can kind of gauge and be like, is this person going to really do what I tell them to do or can I just send them to Lora and then she can hold them accountable and this person can go to you (Dr. Lora) and do the things that we know that she needs to do.

Kelli:

Also asking the question, does she know how to do a proper Kegel? And that's a big deal, and I can't assess that. So, I think there's just some things that I've really come to realize that I have a certain group of people that I can help, but there's a lot of women out there that need pelvic floor therapy with people like you (Dr. Lora) that do the internal work and other assessments that all women probably need.

Kelli:

But where I come in, I think, is the return to play part of the journey. Once we know internally you're working well, and you understand how to engage all that. That's where I think it's cool because we're going to both say, "No, this is something I can help you with," or, "No, go see Dr. Lora," or "Go see Dr. Kelli based on what we think." Because we have that type of relationship. 

Lora Seacat:

Well, I think we both get it from a holistic perspective that it's not just about what your alignment is, what your muscles are doing. It's also about what's your immunity looks like. What's your sleeping pattern like? What's your nutrition like? And I feel like you (Dr. Kelli) have a much better perspective to go through-the deeper stuff. The stuff related to hormones and things like that.

Lora Seacat:

With the internal assessment, as people come here, it's not something that has to be done. We can assess it externally too. But it's a vaginal muscle exam, so it's a little bit different than what you're getting with your gynecologist or your OB. It's more related to the function of the pelvic floor muscles and the pelvic floor plays such a huge role in our core and just managing your day to day continence, your day to day postures. It's not just about the abs that play a role in maintaining your posture and support, it's about how the pelvic floor and the abs work together.

So, with Kelly's knowledge with birth fit and just her chiropractic knowledge and the alignment of the spine, all of that plays a role into posture, but then I can add a component to that with what the pelvic floor muscle function is doing. I describe it a lot as the pelvic floor is a system where It's an automatic reflex. So, compare it to how we blink our eyes. We don't think about how many times we blink in a day, and if we did it would be really distracting if we were aware of it. So, the same is true for the pelvic floor. If we knew every time the pelvic floor was working for us, we'd be very distracted and couldn't focus on anything else.

Lora Seacat:

But really as a PT, my job is to help people return to function. And so bowel, bladder, and sexual function is a big piece of being a human being, and we (Kelli and I) want to work together to normalize the fact that these are functions that we do day to day, and are important to address with how a person is functioning.

Kelli:

Totally. And I think with my birth fit experience, past experience and all the rehab stuff I do with first principles of movement and a lot of Craig Liebenson's work can be all put together. So, are you breathing right? And if you're not breathing right, you're not going to engage. The abs and the pelvic floor won't work correctly. And so making sure that for instance, I have a patient who was having lower back and hip pain, and she would be at the bottom of a squat, every time she'd have hip pain. And so what'd we do? We taught her how to breathe correctly while preforming the squat and then told her to really think about that Kegel contraction at the bottom of the squat. With proper breath patterns the Kegel should happen naturally at the bottom of the squat and with her being more intentional about that, her hip pain went away.

It's just teaching somebody that you might need to be a little more aware of your pelvic floor for a little bit and making sure you're breathing and bracing correctly in those positions, whatever they may be. Understanding what each position you're putting yourself in, what work is required as far as how much and in no time this just comes naturally. How much of a braced core do you need? And that includes pelvic floor and diaphragm working all together. How much of that engagement do you need for whatever task is at hand?

Kelli:

I think that is the hardest part to learn because you don't want to always be thinking about that either, but it also comes naturally as you just go throughout, do the exercises that either one of us could give you and birth fit talks a lot about, which is dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, but there's a lot of other stuff that goes into that and adding load is one big piece of the puzzle.

Lora Seacat:

Well, I'm taking something that's supposed to happen automatically, be more conscious about it, and then training it to be automatic again.

Probably 100% of my patients that come in here I wouldn't say no idea how to do a pelvic floor contraction or what we call a Kegel or they're embarrassed to talk about it. And so it really comes down to how nobody teaches women how to do this.

And so it's really just teaching you how the muscle functions so that you can just be more aware. A lot of that awareness takes it to the next level.

Kelli:

Yeah, and all they are is muscles. And I think you have to get past the part that they're anything else. Literally they're just a bowl of muscles at the bottom of your pelvis. And so just understanding how that works. I can ask somebody, okay, does your Kegel contraction feel like you are pulling a tampon (for example) even further up and inside or pushing it out? But it's one thing to ask them and for them to be like, "Oh yeah, I feel like that," versus being assessed. And I think that is what I have learned since working with you is that, some people think they know, but they really may not know.

Lora Seacat:

You don't know what you don't know.

Kelli:

Exactly. And that's not a bad thing. That's where, I think, women need to know that they have these tools at their disposal.

Lora Seacat:

Just because you're a mom doesn't mean that you're labeled as peeing your pants.

So, just because you've had kids, no matter how you birthed them, it doesn't mean that that has to be your life. I've trained women that are in their 70's and 80's that can really turn around some of the symptoms that they're having both with bowel and bladder.

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When we look at what both Dr. Lora and myself bring to the table we really feel like we are the perfect cocktail and collaboration for a lot of patients. We both each uniquely bring something to the table that can help our patients along in their healing process.

I feel like it's just easier for somebody to see someone like Dr. Lora when they are going through a full PT rehabilitation for a postpartum journey.  I'm the type of person you're going to visit after her when you are returning to play, working on getting back to whatever goal you may have had in mind. In a perfect world you would work with Dr. Lora and her program and once you’ve finished that custom PT program, then you’re going to come see me for more maintenance. We will work towards continuing to keep your results but far beyond that getting stronger and to keep improving your results. Maintenance could just look like a once a month kind of thing (this could be different based on what goals you have). You're going to come in once a month and you're going to be like, "Oh, I have this problem," or, "I have this problem," and I can say, "Hey, what did you do with Lora and how can we make this specific exercise harder?" and just progress you further on from where you even were with Lora. So it's progressing you, but it's also maintenance care at the same time.

If you have any questions about Dr. Kelli or Lora Seacat and their services please reach them at: 

drkellinelson@gmail.com    lseacat@mathispt.com