Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Ingley.
Hi Allison, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in Central Ohio and was involved in multiple sports throughout my life. When I was 9 yrs. old I was involved in a car accident leading to a broken leg and this was my first experience as a physical therapy patient. Fortunately, this was not my only experience with physical therapy and after a few more injuries and many bouts of rehabilitation, I fell in love with the world of physical therapy and the ability of my clinicians to help me return to the activities I loved and feel “whole” again. These experiences as a patient were my primary driver to go to school and become a physical therapist.
I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy degree in 2010 and less than 1 month after graduation I delivered my first child and experienced my first bout of pelvic floor dysfunction. Upon following up with my physician I was told “this is normal after having a baby, do some Kegels.” I knew there had to be more than just “doing some Kegels” so I decided to immerse myself into this field to learn as much as I could to help more people like me. This led me down a path from which I have never looked back.
A career that I had always thought would take me in the direction of sports medicine took a left turn into the world of pelvic floor rehabilitation. I began training as a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist in 2011 and worked in a hospital system for 10 years. I was treating an array of patients from pregnancy and postpartum people to people with pelvic pain to people experiencing bowel and bladder dysfunctions and I absolutely loved what I did but I know there were limitations on what I could do inside the system. When the COVID pandemic began, our outpatient hospital clinic closed for a couple of months. That time away from my traditional work schedule, and the encouragement of my husband, were all I needed to take the plunge into starting my own practice.
Core Strong Physical Therapy has been open now since September 2020 and it has been an absolutely joyful experience! Now I get to spend my days helping highly motivated people with pelvic dysfunction step out of the fear and embarrassment of pelvic dysfunction and step into the confidence they need to thrive in their lives!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
When I initially started my business, I had no idea what I was doing! I was a clinician. I helped people get better. I was good at that. Running a business on the other hand? I had never had a days experience of that in my life and had NO idea what I was doing!
Luckily, I had been given great advice to surround myself by people who knew what they were doing and were good at it instead of trying to do it all by myself. I hired a consultant who taught me the basics of where to start and how to make a legitimate and legal business. Then I hired a business coach. This was the best decision of my life!
She helped me break down who I was, deep down, outside of my roles as a physical therapist, mother, wife, friend, daughter, and sister. She helped me figure out what I really wanted my practice to look like and how I could find the people I really wanted to work with, the people who are highly motivated to get better. She helped me build a sustainable business that I love and helped me to pursue a personal transformation that has allowed me to show up to every appointment with joy and love in my heart for the human in front of me, instead of experiencing the intense level of burnout I was experiencing in my hospital-based job.
This has allowed me to overcome a lot of the imposture syndrome, scarcity mindset, and fear that I had at the beginning of running my practice.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Our practice treats women, men, nonbinary people, and kids with pelvic dysfunction. This can include an array of symptoms but most common is urinary or fecal incontinence (can’t get to the bathroom on time), urinary or fecal urgency (always have to go to the bathroom), constipation, pelvic pain (pain all the time or with specific activities like sex or exercise), prolapse (feel like organs or tissue are dropping out of the pelvis) or wetting the bed.
We spend a lot of time getting to know our patients and their goals and get to help them get back to some pretty cool stuff like running marathons without leaking urine, participating in the CrossFit Open without pain or pressure in their pelvis, having sex again for the first time in years without pain, or finally going to a sleepover without worrying about wetting their pants.
We are also family-friendly! We know a lot of parents and caretakers out there put everyone ahead of themselves and have a hard time making it to their own medical appointments. We never want our patients to feel like they have to put themselves last because they don’t have childcare! We will set up play areas for kiddos to spread out and crawl around, color or have a snack or we may integrate them into the plan of care for the day if needed!
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
As the community searches for more options for preventative care and ways to take their own health into their hands, I think the field of physical therapy will only grow. I am hearing more and more patients who are shifting away from the traditional Western medical model. I truly believe that in the coming years, the health care team will include some form of physician care that tends to be more noninvasive (naturopath, functional medicine, etc.), some form of mental health practitioner (counselor, therapist, etc.), and some form of physical medicine practitioner (physical/occupational/speech therapist, chiropractor, massage therapist, etc.). There are so many options within all of these categories, these are only a very basic few and all have their value for certain people. I think we are going to start seeing people managing their general health more conservatively and then moving on to surgeons and traditional physicians only when conservative measures have a limited effect, instead of that being the starting point.
I’m excited to see where the field of medicine moves in the future!
Contact Info:
- Email: info@corestrongphysicaltherapy.com
- Website: https://www.corestrongphysicaltherapy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/core.strong.pt/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoreStrongPT
Image Credits
White Elm Photography
