I. The balloon is a coordination test disguised as a tool
If it slips out at low volume, that is not failure. It is evidence of down regulation. You just watched the system find release without force. For constipation work, that is often the exact skill you are trying to build.

II. Volume is not the dose. The dose is the reflex
What matters is what the stimulus provokes. A small fill that triggers relaxation can be more therapeutic than a larger fill that triggers guarding. Treat the balloon like a way to access a reflex, not a way to stretch tissue.

III. Retest makes the balloon persuasive
If you can show a patient a resting tone number, do one balloon intervention, and retest immediately, the balloon becomes proof. It stops being weird pelvic stuff and becomes a measurable shift. The patient does not need to believe you. They just need to see their own system change.

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I. “The map is not the territory.” Alfred Korzybski
Your measurement is not the pelvic floor. It is a clue. The balloon is valuable because it reveals what the system does when the patient stops trying to perform.

II. “If you cannot describe what you are doing as a process, you do not know what you are doing.” W. Edwards Deming
Balloon work becomes powerful when you can name the steps and repeat the outcome. Stimulus. Reflex. Retest. Then progress.

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When this balloon stimulus is applied, does the system downshift into release, or upshift into protection, and what does that tell you about what to treat first?

With care,

Team IPC