Many clients come to me, too embarrassed to talk about lichen sclerosus. Today, I am hoping that my guest and I can remove some of the taboo around the topic, as well as share some help for those struggling with the condition (and others like it). My guest today, Dr. Jessica Drummond, DCN, CNS, PT, NBC-HWC, Founder of the Integrative Women’s Health Institute, is passionate about empowering women who struggle with chronic pelvic pain conditions and hormonal imbalances, and female athletes, and supporting women’s health and wellness professionals globally. She has two decades of experience working with women using physical therapy and functional nutrition, and teaching her colleagues, from an integrative, evidence-based, and conservative perspective. Join us as we talk about lichen sclerosus, as well as lichen planus and lichen simplex chronicus, three skin conditions that typically affect vulvar skin. Have you used physical therapy or nutrition changes to manage lichen sclerosus? Tell me about it in the comments!   In this episode: What is lichen sclerosus, and is that different from lichen planus, or lichen simplex chronicus? Are these infections or autoimmune conditions? How can physical therapy help women with these conditions? Are there nutrition or lifestyle strategies that can help women with these conditions?    Quotes “And there's really two main things that physical therapy can help with when it comes to Lichen Sclerosus and Lichen Planus. One is just relaxation, mobility, flexibility of the pelvic floor musculature and surrounding fascia tissues...Secondarily, as I said before, the skin itself can begin to really tighten up and tense up and close off the opening of the vaginal canal and also maybe scar in and around the clitoris and labia minora (internal labia). And that can be painful for intercourse clearly. ” [4:43] “Anything that's going to both calm inflammation generally and heal the barrier between the digestive system and the immune system (which is the lining of the small intestines), from a nutrition standpoint can help heal lichen sclerosus because we're really reversing autoimmunity at the very root.” [9:15]   Links Find Jessica online Check out Jessica's book: Nutrition for Relieving Pelvic Pain: Fueling the Patient/Practitioner Healing Partnership Follow Jessica on Twitter ǀ Facebook ǀ Instagram ǀ LinkedIn ǀ YouTube ǀ Jessica's hormone webinar   040: Lichen Sclerosus Help With Diet And Physical Therapy w/ Jessica Drummond FULL TRANSCRIPT Jennifer: 00:02                     Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Natural Skin Show. I've got another dear friend of mine who's joining me today to talk about a topic. We have actually discussed this before, but we're coming at it from a different perspective this time. We're going to dive into Lichen Sclerosus again, but I want to introduce my guest. Her name is Dr Jessica Drummond and she is the founder of the Integrative Women's Health Institute. She's passionate about empowering women who struggle with chronic pelvic pain conditions and hormonal imbalances as well as female athletes and supporting women's health and wellness professionals globally. She has two decades of experience working with women using physical therapy and functional nutrition and teaching her colleagues from an integrative based and conservative perspective. Thanks so much for joining us Jessica. Jessica: 01:03                     It's my pleasure. Jennifer: 01:03                     I am very excited to talk about this because you look at this from a different perspective. My clients that have had lichen sclerosus, it's like they struggle in silence, ashamed of this issue that they're dealing with. And it is to some degree, very much a skin condition. And it's something that oftentimes they won't come to me as the outright issue. There'll be like, oh, and by the way, I have this thing, I don't know if you know what it is. So can you talk a little bit about what Lichen Sclerosus is and how