Mercier Therapy for Fertility, PCOS and endometriosis with Dr. Lizzie Kieffer, DPT

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I have on the delightful Dr. Lizzie Kieffer who is a Doctor of Physical Therapy specializing in women’s health, specifically pregnancy, postpartum, and fertility wellness. Lizzie gives us her backstory to finding Mercier Therapy and how it influenced her in big ways, both professionally and personally. We talk about how she uses breathwork and mind muscle connection within her practice and she shares some patient success stories with Mercier Therapy. Lizzie believes every woman should have the tools to learn how to "fix their issues'' and feel empowered in regaining strength and confidence.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• What is mind muscle connection benefits?
• Benefits of mind muscle connection
• What is Mercier Therapy?
• Benefits of Mercier Therapy
• How Mercier Therapy can help PCOS, fertility, & endometriosis
• The importance of 4th trimester rehab
• Benefits of breathwork & affirmations
• What to look for when searching for a pelvic floor PT

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ABOUT GUEST:
Lizzie Kieffer is a Doctor of Physical Therapy specializing in women’s health, specifically pregnancy, postpartum, and fertility wellness. She focuses on a holistic, full body approach when it comes to healing and staying healthy. She believes movement truly is medicine and there is power in mind-muscle connection. When we can tune into our bodies, we can find where the root cause is and have long lasting results that don't rely on bandaids. She teaches simple movements that have a profound effect on healing and getting stronger when done consistently and with intention, even just 10 minutes a day of focused work. And as a mama, she knows that sometimes all you have is a quick 10 minutes.

Find Doc Lizzie's free guides here: https://linktr.ee/doclizzie

Doc Lizzie's NEW program: Mind Body Core Postpartum/Pelvic Floor Program

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.doclizzie.com/
Instagram: @doclizziedpt
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpH9UisnqYUzeCaZY1ymNIw

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Christa: Stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance have let a lot of us down. We're over medicated and underserved. At The Less Stressed Life, we're a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories.

[00:00:26] Christa: Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.

[00:00:44] Christa: today, in a less stressed life, I have Dr. Lizzie Kiefer, who is a doctor of physical therapy specializing in women's health, specifically pregnancy, postpartum, and fertility wellness. She focuses on a holistic full body approach when it comes to healing and staying healthy. She believes movement and Truly medicine.

[00:01:03] Christa: And there is power in mind and muscle connection. And that really like caught my eyes. So we'll come back to that in a moment. When we can tune into our bodies, we find where the root causes and have long lasting results that don't rely on band aids. Isn't that such a wonderful sentence right there. 

[00:01:19] Christa: She teaches simple movements that have profound effect on healing and getting stronger when done consistently and with intention.

[00:01:26] Christa: Even just 10 minutes a day of focused work. And as a mama, she knows sometimes all you have is a quick 10 minutes. She believes everyone should have the tools to learn how to fix their issues and feel empowered in regaining strength and confidence. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. 

[00:01:42] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here and chat about all of these things. 

[00:01:47] Christa: I want to tell you how you arrived because people always want to know. We have these meetings once a month to plan out podcast topics. And Lori, a girl on my team says I really love dr. Lizzie P. Cheese stuff on Instagram.

[00:02:01] Christa: And I went and looked at, I was like, I also love it. And we have talked about pelvic floor in the past, but I feel like she brings a new, different perspective. And so we'll talk a little bit about that new, different perspective today about some things you did, but I have to stop and go back to this. 

[00:02:16] Christa: This comment this thing that I kind of underlined and bolded because it makes, as usual, like different things, bring up different things for different people. So when you have in your bio, you care about this mind muscle connection. You might not be thinking what I'm thinking, but when I saw that I think about the health triad that I kind of made up in my brain.

[00:02:34] Christa: Maybe it really exists, but I always think that you can go about every symptom from a triad and the triad can be nutritional is one corner, which can be a whole bunch of stuff. What's going on in the gut and deficiencies and toxicity and whatnot. And then there's the emotional piece, right? So the mind piece, and that can be a lot of stuff.

[00:02:50] Christa: And then there's a structural piece. And that's, I always feel like my PTs do a ton of structural stuff, but there's overlap in all these. So people will often do, they'll see Cairo or PT for like back pain first. And then maybe they'll end up in my realm. Like after they. Okay. Have struggled there, right?

[00:03:06] Christa: It's like, if you struggle with something, you start to move around the different angles. Just like if someone's dealing with an emotion, they might deal with emotion first before they do any kind of like structural and nutritional work. But I was just telling you offline, like I like to just taking note of common denominators and so often I see these kind of chronic pain mechanisms, just causing this neurofeedback loop in the brain forever. And so I see, like, so much of this systemic body pain. That's like, kind of could get a label of fibromyalgia, whatever. Right? But that might be 1 way it's presenting and, like, the intersection of that, or the overlapping of that and, like, depression and other stuff.

[00:03:43] Christa: And I was just actually wondering if you could speak to. Mind, muscle connection as a whole, and what you mean, like some of the things that you think of when that comes up, like what you think of these kind of chronic pain syndromes and what's going on,

[00:03:58] Christa: it's kind of like to me, it's a chicken or the egg because pain sends these signals back to the brain constantly right. And then it's like, to me, it makes you have a bunch of nutrient deficiencies because stress causes that. So anyway, will you speak a little bit to mind, muscle connection and like all the ways you see that playing out in practice? Thanks. 

[00:04:13] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. It is the foundation of pretty much all the rehab that I do.

[00:04:18] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And I love the way you put that triad. That's, it's the emotional, it's the physical, and then there's the nutritional part of it too. They all go hand in hand and they feed off each other so well and that could either be a good way or a bad way. 

[00:04:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So when we're looking at, injury or some sort of pain or dysfunction or something going on with the body, physical therapy related.

[00:04:41] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: You really do need to assess what that root cause is, because say, for instance, you have low back pain. Well, if we're just treating that low back pain and not addressing, maybe it is coming from the pelvic floor, or maybe it's something more systemic or the gut, or, there's all these different avenues that we have to address. If our conservative management is not working, we need to see what else is going on. 

[00:05:02] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so when we put that with the mind muscle connection, It's the same idea of we have to use our brain connecting to that body part in order to make any changes. So let's take for instance, let's keep going with that low back pain.

[00:05:16] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: If we're doing certain exercises to help reduce that low back pain and rehab it, if we're just going through the motions and not really connecting to what muscles are working and going through the motions, then. We're really not going to make lasting effects. And that's the whole point behind rehab is having those lasting effects and retraining our body.

[00:05:35] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so a lot of times I call it brain therapy because we're really just rewiring those neural pathways to signal, not the pain signal, but Hey, this movement is safe. This is okay. And of course that's where like the emotional component comes into it as well. Because with pain, that's high emotions we're talking about, whether that be small pain, large pain, whatever it is, we have to address where those emotions are coming from to and why that's happening.

[00:06:01] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So it's very multifactorial when it comes to any sort of rehab, whether it's a simple ankle sprain or fibromyalgia or something along that line, too. 

[00:06:11] Christa: That was what I was going to ask. if you have any thoughts about, focused area of pain or something that feels can start to feel mysterious to people when it's all over the body and becomes more systemic, I find that.

[00:06:24] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. And when it is more of a systemic thing, fibromyalgia is a tricky thing to treat. And because it does, come from so many different aspects, but it is the same idea of making sure we are hitting that tree ad, like focusing on the nutritional part of it and the emotional part of it too.

[00:06:41] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And not just physically what hurts. 

[00:06:44] Christa: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So I know we want to talk a little bit about this mama factor, right? It's like the pre during and postpartum space. And often I know I've said it here before. So often we forget about that mom in the fourth trimester, or there's a lot of room for improvement.

[00:07:01] Christa: It's like, man, if I. Could have my wishes. I would wish that everyone gets a pelvic floor PT, workup postpartum. Wouldn't that make a huge difference? 

[00:07:10] Christa: Yeah.

[00:07:10] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Oh my gosh. Massive difference. 

[00:07:12] Christa: I know. Like we do not have to pee our pants. And one thing I've noticed from having a few children is like, if you don't use it, you lose it type and I don't know if I shouldn't say it like that, but it's like, it's a muscle, so if you don't like continue to work that area, like these things can come back, right?

[00:07:27] Christa: It's like not like perfect. 

[00:07:29] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Totally. And that's, I really do hope someday it does become a just a thing where you get a pelvic PT exam after having a baby. Because just like you mentioned, we end up having some of these issues that we just One didn't know we're going to be an issue come that 4th trimester

[00:07:47] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: and two, these are usually very fixable things and we just kind of start to train our body how to compensate for those things rather than figuring out how to rehab it because pregnancy and birth is quite an event for our body. So, we need to get those connections back in place in that 4th trimester.

[00:08:05] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And if we don't, we just I guess, learn to live with it and that's where these bomb things, quote unquote come into play. 

[00:08:10] Christa: Right. Okay. So speaking of mom things, let's start with your story because I know it started with trying to conceive for a while and you've stumbled upon some interesting therapy.

[00:08:19] Christa: So let's just open up a little bit with what your story and how you got interested in this, maybe even the transition from the type of PT you were doing before as weaved in there a little bit. 

[00:08:29] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah, of course. Okay. So we'll just kind of start from the beginning here.

[00:08:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So I started out as an orthopedic physical therapist. So I kind of saw pretty much everything. And I was working in a setting that was outpatient and chiropractors work there as well. So I was seeing quite a variety of things. And During that time, it was when my husband and I started to really talk about kids and we were ready to try.

[00:08:54] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And as I was working there we started trying and then we realized it was not going to be as easy as we thought. And so as we were going through our trying to conceive journey, that's when my passion for starting my own business and getting into pelvic floor health really began. 

[00:09:10] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so I have to credit some of our trying to conceive journey to that because I wonder What I have really gone down this path if I didn't have that waiting period of trying to conceive.

[00:09:20] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So long story short during, pandemic of 2020, I started my own business and dove headfirst into pelvic floor PT, postpartum pregnancy, all that kind of stuff. Of course, we're still trying to conceive at that point, but I just carried on with starting my business. And I really got into pelvic health because of just friends and family saying comments here and there of, like you mentioned, P your pants or just these issues postpartum that I'm like, you know what PT can help with this.

[00:09:48] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And I'm going to learn how to do this and really dive deep into it because I know that I can help others. So that's where my passion really stemmed with that. And so started my business with that. 

[00:09:58] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And then with the trying to conceive journey. This is where I really dove into functional medicine and getting to the root of the issue.

[00:10:06] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I started out in the hospital setting of, I got on Clomid and Prevera to really get my period going and ovulation. Nothing worked. And our next step was to see a reproductive endocrinologist, so a fertility specialist. And it was a long wait to get in, which unfortunately that is usually the case. It's months and months to get into an RE.

[00:10:28] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so we put our name in and we ended up getting in a little bit sooner and they told us that our first stop was to do IUI. So intrauterine insemination. And so we were on board with this, but I was still like, okay, something is going on with my cycle because it is super wonky. I'm still having 40 days, 30 days, 45 days.

[00:10:50] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: They were just kind of all over the place. Ovulation was really hard to track. So we went ahead with IUI because at that point, we'd been already trying for a year. And so went ahead with that, and I still continued to dive into the functional medicine aspect and saw local functional medicine provider who started to do more testing on me.

[00:11:07] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And during those time of the IUIs, I also started to do acupuncture and that sorts of kind of functional medicine type of thing. So we did four rounds of IUI with no luck and within the mix of there, I did end up having two miscarriages, which were, they were short, but still very impactful on our life and really hard because, if you've been trying for so long, no matter how short that pregnancy was, you automatically see that light at the end of the tunnel and that hope. 

[00:11:38] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So those were really tough to go through. And so once we stopped with the IUI, we decided that was not working for us. And so the next step was to do IVF. And I just felt deep in my gut that that was not the answer for us.

[00:11:52] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I just really felt that I could figure out what was going on with my body. There had to have been a different way. And so we put IVF on pause and said by the end of 2021, if we were not pregnant, then we would maybe start the IVF process. So I was kind of in a little more of a waiting period.

[00:12:09] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And at that time is when I found Mercier therapy. And I really just found it through, I believe it was an Instagram live. I heard somebody talking about it and I was like, What is this mercy therapy? I've never heard of it. It sounds exactly what I'm looking for right up my alley. And so that I dove headfirst into that as well, did all my research on it.

[00:12:30] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And I found that they were having a course for providers in a couple of months. And so I immediately emailed her and was like, I would love to get into the course. It was on a wait list. And so she emailed me back after a couple of weeks and said that there was an opening. And so I got into the course and I had a full thought of, okay, I'm going to use this course. Hopefully I can get pregnant from it, but then also I can help others through fertility struggles. 

[00:12:57] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so after doing a ton of research on it and just with my physical therapy background of the manual therapy, I started to do some of the work on myself. And that month I ended up getting pregnant with Mia, which is the daughter that we have now.

[00:13:11] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so I attribute a lot of how we got pregnant to all the work we put in, but also to that hands on approach. Cause that is an aspect I think that was lacking for us was working on the area because I had shut that area down emotionally and physically and didn't really think about it as much as doing that hands on kind of work.

[00:13:31] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so I really feel like just addressing that area and helping bring blood flow back to that area and connecting to it with. What was I holding there? What kind of trauma was I holding there? What emotions were I holding there? And speaking affirmations, all of that, which is what Mercy Therapy helps with and teaches you is what I really started to do.

[00:13:51] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so I am just very thankful I had found that therapy and now I can help other women as well. 

[00:13:57] Christa: Oh, well, awesome. So this is great. So for me, when people ask me about this is so timely, because it's, I'm kind of having like a month of talking about fertility stuff and I don't talk about it a lot publicly, but there's a lot of opportunity.

[00:14:10] Christa: And as your story just illustrated, in my opinion, the toolbox is a bit one sided, or there's a lot of opportunity in the toolbox for fertility. And in our nutrition toolbox, a bunch of cool stuff for egg quality. To me, it's optimizing thyroid, adrenals, and basically again, back to the brain, making sure the brain feels good enough to make progesterone, but you're talking about it from even a little more interesting perspective.

[00:14:34] Christa: Active, which is like physically in the body, right after that, bringing blood flow to an area. So I'm going to need you to unpack mercy therapy a little bit more. 

[00:14:43] Christa: So tell me how that caught your eye in the first place. Like, what about it? Because right now it's like, okay, you did some physical therapy and it helps you get pregnant.

[00:14:52] Christa: But like. Make it more tangible. What brought you to Mercy Day Therapy and like, what are some of the tenants or like what it does? Like, tell us a little, unpack it for us. 

[00:15:01] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Oh, I'd love to. Yes, I am. I could talk about this all day. So Mercy Day Therapy, when I had heard about it, one, I was immediately drawn to it because I was like, I could do this as a provider.

[00:15:13] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: This could be a toolbox for me to help others. And so, Once I really looked into it and the research behind it and the science behind it, what Mercy Therapy is a visceral manipulation, which means we are working the organs of the body. And how often do we touch the organs, work the organs? Not very often.

[00:15:34] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so for me, I'm like, ding, ding, this is a missing piece. How can I effectively work the uterus and the ovaries and get down into that pelvis to help with blood flow, oxygen, and really just movement of those organs. One of my biggest issues was a thin uterine lining. So my endometrium never really got thick enough to have it plush for an embryo to implant. 

[00:15:59] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so if we can work that area to help one work, the ovaries to stimulate the brain of those hormones that helped to release, the egg from the ovary and all that kind of stuff. How can we work that area to promote that connection to the brain and signal the brain?

[00:16:15] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Hey, this is a safe place to have an embryo implant and also just things to work better too. So that's initially what caught my eye. 

[00:16:23] Christa: How did you know that your uterine lining was too thin for? 

[00:16:29] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So 1, I had very light periods and 2, going through the reproductive endocrinologist and the fertility clinic, they would do vaginal ultrasounds before ovulation since we were doing the IUIs and really they want it to be 8mm and mine hardly ever got up past 6. 5mm. So that's why I really started the acupuncture and then of course when I found Mercier therapy it was just a no brainer for me. 

[00:16:55] Christa: Okay, cool. Okay, so that's what caught your eye. Let's talk about some of the pieces, maybe who created Mercier therapy. I always feel like a lot of methodologies are, you'll see common denominators and other successful methodologies, right?

[00:17:12] Christa: Like if you look around, and so, So let's talk about like how it all started and like maybe who, and who created it. And then let's talk about some of the tenants of it. If that makes sense, did zero research on this topic. 

[00:17:24] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: No, let me just kind of dive into it. So mercy therapy was created by Jennifer Mercier and she is located up in the Chicago area.

[00:17:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: She is a naturopath and she had been a midwife for a long, long time, delivered many, many babies. And she herself struggled with fertility and she had a background of being a massage therapist as well. And so she would have her interns work on her and essentially create the mercy therapy method. 

[00:17:52] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so she just started to piece this together and then started to work on other people and found the benefits of it. And with mercy therapy, it's pretty incredible. The success rate for pregnancy is 83% within that first year of getting the therapy. Now the therapy is only six sessions long. So you do it one time a week for six weeks. And then we just check in with you monthly as you go through, you're trying to conceive journey and with it being an 83% success rate, that's it's pretty incredible when you compare that to IBF being only 25, maybe 26% success after that first transfer. 

[00:18:30] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So for this to be one way more cost effective to hitting more of the root issues and three, just more of that holistic approach, it can also be done in conjunction with IBF or other medicated cycles too.

[00:18:44] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: But to me, it's just an avenue of fertility that. We really need within our society rather than just jumping straight to medication and the traditional routes as well. 

[00:18:56] Christa: Fascinating. Also, thank you for the stats on IVF. You know, isn't this like how it feels? It's like what in the world are we doing?

[00:19:05] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I know, I know.

[00:19:07] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: With our training course, we go into depth of what IVF is, what it looks like across the country, and even what's happening in other countries too. And it's, to be honest, very mind blowing what's happening. And I do think IVF is a beautiful thing that we have, especially for people who, maybe they don't have any uterine tubes or fallopian tubes, or they really, that is the only option for them.

[00:19:28] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I am so thankful we have IVF, but I do think it is a procedure that is jumped to rather quickly and it really is pretty intense on the body with all the medications that you have to take and just what the woman has to go through in order to do IBF. So very thankful. Mercy therapy is an option for couples as well, but let's get back to a little bit of the science behind it.

[00:19:50] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So she created this mercy therapy and started to work on people. And then she did do some research articles on it and just showed the benefits of hands on therapy for That's kind of how she got this statistic and then just improving the blood flow to the area and circulation and then also beefing up that uterine lining.

[00:20:10] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So there are research articles on that. I'll see if I can get those to you and maybe you can link them too. But this role manipulation is where we are working those organs. And so, like I'd mentioned before, this is an area that we don't really touch or work into. And there is something called the Mayan massage.

[00:20:26] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I don't know if you've heard of that. Okay, so that is a type of fertility massage that massage therapist can be trained in and they do work more kind of the abdomen area and different cupping techniques, but mercy therapy is different in the sense that it does do more of that visceral manipulation. So we are going deep down into that uterus and then working all the way through the pelvis and into the back and whatnot.

[00:20:47] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So mercy therapy is great for those who are just struggling with fertility, who are wanting to do this in conjunction with an IUI or IVF. It can be for those who have endometriosis. It is a really, really beautiful therapy for endometriosis as That is endometrial tissue that can be spread throughout the body and be very, very painful.

[00:21:10] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And Jennifer Mercier, she did have endometriosis and this helped with her endometriosis. And I have had clients who this helped tremendously with some of the pain that they endured through, their cycles. And so it can be for that. And it can also be really great for C section. So any of that scarring that goes all the way down to the uterus, we don't really work that deep.

[00:21:31] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so scar tissue can hinder our abilities to one, get pregnant and to just move in the way that we need to and fascial pulls and all that kind of stuff. So getting deep down into that area can help with releasing some of that scar tissue or just help it move better in general. 

[00:21:48] Christa: I have a lot of questions.

[00:21:50] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yes. 

[00:21:50] Christa: First of all, I'm going to start with this one. 

[00:21:52] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. 

[00:21:53] Christa: When you think about Mercier therapy and now that you've worked with people doing this for fertility, this is like a fun question. I wrote down like, what are some of the weirdest things that you've seen when you said scar tissue and like just stuff?

[00:22:05] Christa: I'm like, I think there's such bizarre things that can contribute to our imbalances or our inability to produce certain things. So anything stick out to you? I don't want to, like, feed into this too much of, like, any thoughts, because I'm like, well, like, oh, let me give you one example I find it very fascinating how much concussions impact the immune system and can impact, like, how people respond to foods.

[00:22:28] Christa: It's fascinating. When we talk about scar tissue and things like, what are some weird things you've seen that are impairing people, like from having their body thinking everything is fine and it can produce, it can do things the way it's supposed to. 

[00:22:42] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So I would say, there were multiple situations that I have encountered with clients that it kind of like what we talked about, it goes back to that triad.

[00:22:50] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So when we're working into the abdomen and into the uterus and that area. And they tell me, their symptoms beforehand and just their whole subjective review, we really start to see pieces connect to other issues within the body, such as gut issues. That is a huge 1 for just pelvic floor issues in general, but also fertility too.

[00:23:12] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so the bloating that they have, um, whether it be around certain parts of their cycle or. I mean, just kind of all the time. We can really relate that to the gut and other things going on there. And as far as really interesting things, I would have to say, Oh gosh, it's a tough one because I don't know if I've had anything like way off the wall bizarre, but I have had clients who have done, well, I'll get to this one in a second, but one.

[00:23:40] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: the ovaries, the cysts on the ovaries that can get really large. I've had clients who after we've done mercy therapy, they have reduced significantly. And they know this because they were doing the, IUIs within. So they were getting those vaginal ultrasounds too, and all the sounds. And so I thought that was really, really interesting that just that hands on kind of technique really helped to decrease the cysts and the pain that they were experiencing in that area. 

[00:24:06] Christa: Right. I just wonder, and when I think about cysts, I think about like, and well, they're undeveloped follicles. So like, I always think about it as like, I think I can, I think I can hormones like can't quite get there, but then that cyst is kind of like leftover debris

[00:24:20] Christa: almost right. Like it's not useful anymore. So it just kind of hangs out. So if you're doing something that supports drainage and elimination. So I think of this therapy probably really supporting lymphatics a lot. 

[00:24:31] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Exactly. 

[00:24:32] Christa: Then that makes sense that it would really 

[00:24:33] Christa: support it 

[00:24:34] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: where we are working on that lymphatic movement and drainage because the limb system.

[00:24:39] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Also plays such a role in our overall health and it is one of those things that I think people do start to catch on, with the whole bouncing thing that is going on nowadays and the dry brushing and all of that for limp health. I think it is starting to catch on a little bit more and how much the limb system impacts our body and of course, fertility as well.

[00:25:00] Christa: Right. But if you're being really manual and a little more intense, 1 thing, I think that's fascinating. I'm a bit jealous of is that you have a very prescriptive timeframe here. Like, it's once a week for 6 weeks, which is nice. I think there's different ways people can do that, but it's like, it's really cool when you can say, this is what's normal or here's what it takes to create that particular result. So I liked that part of it. 

[00:25:22] Christa: So you said Jennifer Mercier was an ND, she was a midwife. She had a massage background. So that makes me think that more than physical therapists do Mircea therapy probably, right? 

[00:25:33] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. 

[00:25:33] Christa: So interesting. Yeah. And is this new ish? Like she's not deceased or like how long has this been around?

[00:25:39] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: She is still going strong with it and still teaching the course. I believe it's been around, I want to say 10 to 15 years, it's been going on and I would say in the last. Probably 5 years. I think it is really caught fire. And which I think is amazing because I do think people are looking for more of those holistic approaches.

[00:25:59] Christa: That's what happens. 

[00:26:00] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah, 

[00:26:01] Christa: that's what happens when your next option is like 20 to 30 grand. It's like, is there anything else? This seems a bit invasive, right? You know, and that happens with a lot of conditions. It's like, really? This is the next option? Like a really, like a 3, 000 drug every month? Like, really? That's, that's it. It's like, yeah, there's gotta be more options. So that's kind of my mantra is like, probably an option. There's probably more options. 

[00:26:24] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And just, this is kind of off a little bit, but it's still in the same thing that we're talking about, but just in general of different dysfunctions that people are told they automatically need surgery for or that those are the only options. I'm like, have we tried some hands on therapy here? Have we addressed the mental component of what's going on? You know, there's so many avenues that I think our health system these days just doesn't necessarily have time for and big pharma, all these different things that play a role in it all, 

[00:26:56] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: but I just think there's such beauty and so much that can come from just putting some hands on work on people and finding that root cause. 

[00:27:05] Christa: I'm sure you could beat your head against a wall with the amount of people that have surgery over something that you could have helped them.

[00:27:12] Christa: Yes, we have. I'm sure because this is what I get when I hang out with PT friends a lot. Like, there's so much overlap in how we feel about everything. We have so many of the same issues in our profession. 

[00:27:21] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Totally. Totally.

[00:27:23] Christa: Okay. So the next question I was thinking about when you're talking about doing this very specific visceral massage and therapy is if someone's not coming in to see someone in person and you're trying to teach this virtually, Tell us about how easy or difficult that is.

[00:27:38] Christa: Cause when I have some, what I've had in my massage therapist, do any abdominal massage, I'm like, if I do that on myself, like I would not do as an effective job. So what is your approach? 

[00:27:48] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And that's the thing with wish it was something you could do more at home and I wish I could teach at home. But since it is such a deep work, there's really no way for you to do it on yourself because you'd end up just tensing the abdomen or you just can't quite get to the areas that we need to.

[00:28:04] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And then we also work into the glutes and the backside and fascial restrictions there. So it's really just almost impossible to do on yourself. Now there are things that I do get my clients to Do at home, and that is simply breath work and affirmations. And that seems so small and just unimpactful. But that's one of the biggest things that we can do for ourselves is that mind vessel connection or just connecting to that area.

[00:28:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So I have 'em just lay on the floor, place their hands on their uterus and or whatever area is giving 'em issues, and then just think about breathing into that area. Breathe into that uterus, feel everything expand, realize that there's something down there and that it's living and breathing and it moves and then speaking affirmations into that because what we speak to ourself really does matter.

[00:28:54] Christa: Oh, I spend a lot of time trying to make breath work sound sexy, clients because it's like Uh, this particular term, this is why like mind muscle connection or under like, for me, I don't see how I like people to understand what's happening, right? Like I want them to understand how it all fits together because then you can really appreciate it.

[00:29:12] Christa: But so often we assign a label to something, right? 

[00:29:15] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. And breath work is just, it's one of those things that I really try to lightly and carefully with my clients because I don't want them to think it is just breathing. I we are stimulating that vagus nerve. We are trying to get that pair of parasympathetic response of rest and digest and decreasing that nervous system.

[00:29:31] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Deregulating the nervous system because we're so hyped up in our, we have a such a stimulus world and that goes with fertility or any other thing that we're talking about. If we can just deregulate the system a little bit through breath work by stimulating that parasympathetic response, it can do wonders for our stress levels.

[00:29:52] Christa: You know, one of my original breathwork mentors is a physical therapist by trade, and he was feeling very helpless about what he could leave. He was like, oh, my gosh, I can't help them change this. Like, so that he got into functional breathwork and functional breathwork is really kind of like a scientist's toolbox of here's how I impact these types of things where there's a few different types, which I did not really realize there was those distinctions until probably like 5 months ago.

[00:30:18] Christa: So I feel like, bet you don't learn this in school. Like, when did you come into breathwork as a use of modality and physical therapy? Cause I feel like I have a, even a chiropractic friend who does pelvic floor stuff and it's like the backbone of it is breathwork. 

[00:30:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And it totally totally is. Diaphragmatic breathing, which is a type of breathing, is the absolute foundation. Number one thing that I teach to all of my clients because it is the only way that we really tap into that pelvic floor in that deep core. So I learned about breathing when I did start to get into more of the pelvic floor type of stuff.

[00:30:55] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I did do some breathwork type of things D. N. S. Which is called dynamic neuromuscular stabilization. I don't know if you've heard of that, but it is just a rehab technique where we're tapping into the nervous system and putting you into kind of those developmental patterns to help retrain that brain.

[00:31:11] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so we learn breathing techniques with that, and that's where I dove into it. And then, of course, like I said, getting into the public floor stuff, we learn more of the diaphragmatic breathing and just a stress relief kind of breathing techniques. But this, unfortunately, is not something we you usually learn within physical therapy school and even pelvic floor physical therapy. 

[00:31:30] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: This is all education that we do after school. We learn bits and pieces of maybe some of the muscles of the pelvic floor in school, but that's honestly the depth that it goes into. And that's why seeing a specialist of whether that be a neuro specialist or a pelvic floor or Sports is really helpful because we do so much extra training after school to learn about that specific field.

[00:31:54] Christa: What I have found in PT that's similar to my profession is that I have met so many people who do pelvic floor work at this juncture, right? At this phase of life. But if you think you're going to find someone who specializes in pelvic floor, I'm under the impression if you do private practice PT, you're probably going to get a better experience than a large facility.

[00:32:16] Christa: And I think our opinion is, let me go to this large medical facility that's really renowned in my town, whereas actually they have more limited scopes of practice. Sometimes. 

[00:32:27] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah, '

[00:32:27] Christa: or they're more used to doing like rehab stuff. It's kind of like in my profession. There's some really pigeonholed in a box type things that are really common and that insurance has covered, and in your case, I bet it's like post surgery stuff. Just a guess, just a guess. But I'm sure that's like the pigeonhole that you guys are in a big clinic or facility setting. And what I have learned for both of us is that we can do better work in these private practice settings, cause we can really do our own continuing it. 

[00:32:55] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: It's true. And I wish that wasn't the case, but insurance does a lot of what physical therapists can do or just what they'll actually get paid for.

[00:33:05] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And so being in a private practice, we can really spend one on one time. And I will say there are, just like any field, there's a wide variety of ways to practice. And I would say if you're seeing a pelvic floor PT. Really making sure that they're understanding it's a full body approach to, and they're not just doing the internal assessment and giving you some key goals because that is one type of practice of it, but the other practice is really that full body approach and connecting it to functional movement, connecting it to your breath and really all the stuff that you do throughout your day.

[00:33:36] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So I highly recommend finding somebody who has that kind of approach. And a lot of times it is within that private practice sector. 

[00:33:44] Christa: Well, I bring it up because I think it's just important to know. So nice. I might know a lot of people, but if you're listening to this, and, if you're kind of looking for someone you can work with in person, potentially, then there's just ways to find someone who might have that skill set. Right? 

[00:34:00] Christa: I know there's so much more we could chat about, but I'd like to save it for a subsequent because I feel like there's like prepping for pregnancy and other things. And I just feel like this was such a good topic to, like, have standalone with mercy therapy. 

[00:34:11] Christa: So to recap. It's a recent kind of development or really a protocol created by someone who had these experiences and now teaches other people, but it's useful in not only fertility prep to bring blood flow to that area to support lymphatics.

[00:34:27] Christa: It also can be useful in PCOS, which is super duper common and endometriosis pain, which is super duper common. Is there any other indications for it? 

[00:34:36] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So the only other one I can think of is post surgical. So any sort of abdominal surgery or, 

[00:34:41] Christa: the C section recovery. 

[00:34:43] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yep. C section, laparoscopy, anything to where they're getting into that area where we can work the scar tissue. That would be another indication for this kind of therapy. 

[00:34:50] Christa: Oh, that's wonderful because that's like, this is really a lot of people, right? Isn't that how funny how that works? It's like, oh, it's actually affects like so many darn people. 

[00:34:59] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And that's why I'm just, I'm so glad that it's out there and that it's helping so many people with it.

[00:35:03] Christa: Yeah, for sure. Okay. So some of the tenants are just bringing blood flow to that area. I don't know if breathwork is part of it, but really, like, a lot of visceral manipulation is kind of the real crux of it right? Every week is there a different angle ?

[00:35:18] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So we do the same therapy each week because it's basically building on each other and we'll address certain areas if it's feeling like a little more restricted, maybe on 1 side versus the other. As far as like, the ovaries go or anything like that. 

[00:35:30] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: But the therapy remains the same each session so that it can continue to improve all those things that we talked about. 

[00:35:36] Christa: And then people do it in between. I'm sure as well. Right? What if people are not where they want to be at the end of 6 weeks, then what is like the protocol from there? Do you just is there some cases more challenging because of scar tissue? I would imagine. Or do you ever do any other modalities? 

[00:35:52] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. So as a PT, there are some times where I say we need to do a little bit more of some physical therapy type of stuff.

[00:35:59] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: But based on the protocol and the research of it, I say, this is the six weeks and really we let your body just heal now. And we let it do its thing and process and give it that time to do what it needs to do in order to hopefully achieve pregnancy. If they are planning to do, medicated cycle or IVF later down the road, We can always do one or two therapies of that mercy therapy session, as they're approaching that.

[00:36:23] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: But really it's just, we do those six sessions and we let your body do its thing. And it's pretty incredible. 

[00:36:29] Christa: Yeah. What are some of the results? Like we all love stories. Tell us some fun stories. 

[00:36:34] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. Let me just tell you a few because it's so exciting.

[00:36:36] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So a lot of my clients who come in have been trying for quite some time, of course. And I do have one in particular who I just, I always think about her and she had gone through two years of trying to conceive and several IUI cycles and did have a, late term miscarriage. And so she found mercy therapy, started to work with me.

[00:36:59] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And after sessions, I believe it was probably two or three months after we finished, she got pregnant and she actually got pregnant with twins and twins do not run in her family. And it's not necessarily a side effect of mercy therapy to have twins, but she did get pregnant with twins after going through all of that stuff.

[00:37:17] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And they are already here on earth side and doing very well. And, thinking about too, I actually had another client who she did not go through any medicated cycles or anything, but she got pregnant with twins from her see a therapy and does not run in her family or anything like that. 

[00:37:32] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: Yeah. And then the other one that I'll share, is a gal who came to see me because she was doing, embryo adoption, which is something I was not super familiar with. And so she wanted to have her best odds possible for having that happen. And so she did the mercy therapy prior to her IVF cycle, which she was doing in California.

[00:37:54] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: And she ended up, it all went well and she has two healthy babies from embryo adoption. And it was just a really, really cool thing to be a part of just to get those pregnancy tests, text messages or emails is just the best thing in the world. 

[00:38:10] Christa: Yeah. Really validating your life and career. Okay. Thank So, Lizzie, how can people find you online, or do you work with people virtually?

[00:38:19] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: So at this time, I am not working with people virtually. I do have a course coming out that is a postpartum pelvic floor rehab course. So that's a way that they can do virtual stuff with me if they want to, but my Instagram at doc, Lizzie DPT is a great way to just find information, free resources. I have a lot of freebies on there and just to kind of chit chat with me.

[00:38:40] Christa: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. And I anticipate a future conversation for us. 

[00:38:45] Dr. Lizzie Kieffer: I would love that. I had such a good time. 

[00:38:47] Christa: Thank you.

[00:38:48] Christa: Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission to help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story. Just go to review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life. That's review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life.

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