Strengthening deep abdominal muscles

[Pelican]

I've started seeing a PT who deals a lot with pelvic pain although she mostly treats women and doesnt know much of the Stanford/Wise-Anderson Protocol I'm still going to give it a go.
In her opinion the important parts are posture, breathing, stretching and using a physioball to strengthen deep balancing muscles.
While I'm there I do breathing exercises while doing the pelvic tilt(AHIP) on each exhale. I'm also trying to work on a better posture and she thinks I should get a physioball and exercise the deep abdominal and balance muscles.
I have given her a copy of AHIP although she doesnt know anything about triggerpoint release, I just want her to kind of know more about my condition.
Does this sound like something that could work and has anyone gotten results from using a physioball?

[alprost]

I'd be careful with this one - as you stated, the women doesn't have any experience of treating trigger points or CPPS. The issue of strengthening the deep abdominal muscle comes from research which shows that people with chronic low back pain have poor activation of these muscles, therefore the goal of these exercises is to get these muscles 'firing' at the appropriate time to stabilise the pelvis and spine.

I'd actually be careful with these exercises. Patients are usually told to perform a low grade contraction of the deep abdominals and pelvic floor, and hold this contraction through the movement/exercise - as far as your pelvic floor is concerned, this is the same as performing numerous low intensity kegels. These can flare symptoms in some men.

If you have low back pain, it might be worth a try, but the rest of the symptoms you describe in your signature are fairly standard chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome symptoms and the above treatment methods are simply not intended to treat this problem. My advice would be to put your resources into seeking out a physio who does have experience of treating CPPS. You mention that anxiety worsens your symptoms - in the meantime you would probably benefit from regularly practising some form of relaxation/meditation.

Many Physio's see these exercises as a panacea for all ills and apply them to every problem despite little supporting evidence for anything other than chronic low back pain.

However, when a patients symptoms are under control, these exercises may then be appropriate if pelvic control and stability are an issue, but they are not useful in treating CPPS.

[Gettingbetter]

My physio told me the same thing.....to strenghten my deep abdomen muscle(transversus abdominis) but she didn't tell to contract my pelvic floor at the same time. This muscle was extremely hard to activate at first because my body had "forgotten" it.

[Pelican]

The only problem is that there are no good PTs in sweden, at least none who does internal work!
I'm going to keep up with my stretching, morning walks, work outs and relaxation to deal with my problems. I have a Theracane but I'm a little scared of using it fully. I feel lots of different pain and sensations in my abdomen so I'm not sure which ones are triggerpoints. A few spots even refer pain but in different ways!?
I've visited about three PTs but none of them could find any triggerpoints. They didn't find the spots I've found on my own with the help of my Theracane!