panties

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: 5 Requirements for Bladder Health

by General Urinary IncontinenceKegelsPelvic Floor MusclesUrinary Incontinence

pantiesIf you suffer from women’s urinary incontinence, you may be feeling quite frustrated about your wet panties, especially if you haven’t been able to solve your symptoms quickly.

But hold on … the human anatomy is a complicated system, and everything has to work just right for you to avoid urinary incontinence. Did you know that your urinary system has to meet 5 requirements for you to urinate properly?

Really.

The 5 Requirements for Bladder Health
Having a healthy bladder, and resolving your urinary incontinence, means you urinate every three to six hours, which is typical for a healthy person. Unfortunately, if you have women’s urinary incontinence, you probably run for the bathroom far more frequently.

Why is that? One or more of these five functions may not be working well in your body, preventing you from going when you want to … rather than when your body forces you to go.

Requirement #1 for Bladder Health: A Big Enough Bladder
A healthy bladder can hold up to 2 cups of urine before it needs to be emptied. If, for some reason, the walls of your bladder don’t stretch enough to accommodate this amount of urine, you’ll either have urine leakage or need to visit the bathroom often.

Requirement #2 for Bladder Health: Feel the Urge
When your bladder is full, it sends a signal through your nervous system to your brain, which gives you the urge to go. That means that your nervous system has to be functioning properly, and your brain has to interpret the signal correctly. Due to injury, illness, or neurological conditions, some women do not get the sensation of a full bladder and end up instead with wet panties.

Requirement #3 for Bladder Health: Get a Move On
Once your brain sends you the message that you need to urinate, the next impediment is finding a bathroom quickly enough. Hence the “bathroom radar” many women with urinary incontinence develop. For some seniors, speed of movement is a difficulty. For other women, getting their clothes off quickly enough can be a problem. For this reason, many women end up wearing pants with elastic waistbands or other “easy off” clothing. This can definitely ruin a gal’s fashion sense!

Requirement #4 for Bladder Health: Control Those Bladder Muscles
To control your urination and prevent urine leakage, you need strong pelvic floor muscles, especially the muscle called the bladder sphincter. To improve the tone of your pelvic floor muscles, consider doing Kegels and other toning exercises specifically for your muscles “down there.” Many women do Kegels, but incorrectly, so they see very few results. To discover how to do a correct pelvic floor contraction and more, download our free ebook, which gives you step-by-step instructions.

Requirement #5 for Bladder Health: Empty the Bladder Completely
If you are able to get to a bathroom in time to avoid a leakage accident, but then can’t empty your bladder completely, then you’ll feel the urge to urinate soon. The inability to empty your bladder completely not only increases the frequency of your urge to urinate, but can also increase your risk of urinary tract infections. If you feel that your bladder is not emptying completely each time you urinate, check with an urologist. A quick test will confirm whether this is one of the causes of your urinary incontinence.

Steps You Can Take for Bladder Health
Hopefully this snapshot of the different requirements necessary for bladder health gives you an idea of where your body’s urinary system may be breaking down. Armed with this knowledge, you can better communicate with your healthcare providers about your situation.

In addition, check out these resources for women’s urinary incontinence:

Free Ebook: What’s Up Down There?
Online Resources for Women’s Urinary Incontinence

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

Image courtesy of marin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

pregnant

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Post-Partum Statistics

by Find the Right DoctorGeneral Urinary IncontinenceKegelsUrge IncontinenceUrge Urinary IncontinenceUrinary Incontinence

pregnantDid you know that women who have given birth are 2.5 times more likely to have urinary incontinence than women who have not?

It’s sad, but true. During pregnancy, a woman’s body undergoes many physical and hormonal changes. These changes can result in urinary urgency, urge urinary incontinence, and incomplete emptying of the bladder during pregnancy.

While some women who experience urinary incontinence during pregnancy do not have urine leakage after delivery, many do. The opposite is also true: women who were continent during their pregnancy may discover that they leak urine post-partum.

Some Statistics about Women’s Urinary Incontinence Post-Partum
What’s a mom-to-be or a new mom to think? Well, here are some statistics which may offer you some guidance on what to expect (according to Carolyn Sampselle as reported in the American Journal of Nursing):

–    Vaginal delivery is linked to a high rate of urinary incontinence in the period directly after birth
–    21% of women experience urinary incontinence after their first vaginal delivery with spontaneous birth
–    36% of women experience urinary incontinence after their first vaginal delivery with forceps delivery

Now zoom into the future about five years and you get this statistic: women who experience urinary incontinence for a period of time post-partum are three times as likely to have urinary incontinence five years later.

In addition, in a study by Brown and Lumley (2000), urinary incontinence was one of the three major health factors associated with poor emotional well-being post-partum. The other two factors were tiredness and a higher than usual number of minor illnesses. Ultimately, if left untreated, these factors can lead to long-term depression.

So What is a Post-Partum Mom to Do?
If you suffered from urinary incontinence during your pregnancy, or post-partum, then you should take definite and immediate action. Make an appointment and speak honestly with your doctor about your condition. Find out what conservative measures you can take to improve your symptoms.

Then take charge and be your own best health advocate! Browse through the various posts on this blog to learn how to find the best doctor, talk to your doctor, prepare for your appointment, and more. Or, download our free ebook, “What’s Up Down There” and do a quick self-assessment of your situation “down there.” The ebook also gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do a correct pelvic floor contraction, or Kegel, which helps alleviate many symptoms of urinary incontinence.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bladder Health: Did You Know the Bladder Shrinks with Age?

by KegelsStress Urinary IncontinenceUrge Urinary Incontinence

Get this:

As you age certain parts of your body get larger (like your nose or ears) while other parts shrink, like your bladder.

Yikes! That’s bad news for those with women’s urinary incontinence. Leaking urine is bad enough, but the fact that the condition might worsen with aging due to a shrinking bladder can be downright depressing.

At age 25, the average person’s bladder can hold about two cups of urine before it has to be emptied. By age 65, that amount decreases to just one cup. That means twice as many trips to the bathroom.

Bladder Health: What to Do About the Shrinking Bladder
So what does a woman do about her incredible shrinking bladder? That’s a good question.

The answer is simple: train your bladder.

If you are otherwise fairly healthy, you can train your bladder so that you go when you want to, rather than when your bladder dictates you must. With bladder training, you are taking steps toward restoring bladder health.

Bladder Training and Bladder Health
The goal of bladder training is to learn to urinate before you have the urgent urge to go, or after you successfully reduce or eliminate the urge. Learning to urinate before the urgent need is upon you helps because running for the bathroom only makes urine leakage worse. Running tends to jiggle the abdominal organs, which increases the pressure on your bladder … and you end up with urine leakage.

With bladder training you focus on increasing the amount of time between urination. This technique is most effective for women with stress urinary incontinence or urge urinary incontinence (also called overactive bladder).

How to Train Your Bladder
To train your bladder, start out by urinating every two hours during the day, whether or not you feel you have to go. After you have successfully mastered this schedule, gradually increase the time between urination by half hour increments, until you reach four hours. Four hours is a reasonable period of time between urination, and at this point you won’t find the urge to go interfering with your life.

During bladder training, if you feel the urge to go during the two hour window, stop what you are doing and remain still. At the same time, perform a pelvic floor muscle contraction, also called a Kegel. Squeeze your pelvic floor muscles several times quickly, and do not relax fully between squeezes. These are similar to “quick Kegels,” and will help suppress the urge to urinate. Also stay calm and take deep breaths. Once the urge has passed, walk slowly to the bathroom while continuing to do some quick Kegels.

Bladder Health Takes Practice
As with all new exercises, bladder training takes practice. Don’t worry if your first attempts at doing this exercise don’t succeed. Just stay focused and keep practicing. Eventually your pelvic floor muscles will become much stronger and you will feel the urgent urge to go less frequently. Also consult your physician to see if there are other conservative therapies that will complement bladder training.

Finally, if you are not sure how to do a correct pelvic floor muscle contraction (and about half of all women are not), check out our step-by-step ebook that gives you step by step instructions.

Download the “What’s Up Down There” ebook here.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

The Importance of Pelvic Floor Health

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor WeaknessPelvic Organ ProlapsePessaryPOPStress Urinary Incontinence

Guest Post by Linda Grayling

A healthy pelvic floor serves as the supporting structure for the pelvic organs, which include the uterus, bladder and rectum. It supports the weight of the baby during pregnancy, and plays a role in core strength and posture. A strong pelvic floor can make childbirth and recovery easier, enhance sexual sensation, and help prevent pelvic floor disorders.

The extra pressure placed on the pelvic floor from supporting the baby throughout pregnancy and the strain of delivery can weaken this support system. This can lead to pain during or the inability to have sex, urinary incontinence, trouble with bowel movements, and prolapsed or displaced pelvic organs.

High-impact activities, heavy lifting, chronic coughing, frequently straining to produce a bowel movement, obesity, and smoking can also contribute to a weakened pelvic floor and increase the chance of developing a pelvic floor disorder.

Stress Urinary Incontinence
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common pelvic floor disorder that affects at least a third of all women at some point in their lives. It occurs when the stress from normal activities–like exercise, coughing or sneezing, laughing and even sex–triggers accidental urine leakage.

Many women experience minor issues with bladder control every now and then, but when incontinence becomes more frequent or interferes with daily life, they should talk to a doctor. Incontinence is directly related to the strength of the pelvic floor. Weakened pelvic floor muscles increase the odds of developing SUI.

Performing Kegel exercises daily can resolve symptoms of incontinence in just a few weeks. Not only will women stop experiencing embarrassing leakage during sex, but Kegels also heighten sexual sensation and help achieve orgasm.

Pelvic Organ Prolapse
Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the pelvic floor is no longer strong enough to hold the pelvic organs in their proper place, allowing them to sag against the vaginal walls–and in severe cases, protrude from the vaginal canal. Prolapse occurs in half of all childbearing women, but is frequently without symptoms, making it a non-issue.

For women who do experience symptoms, they can include a pulling feeling or pelvic pressure, low back pain, problems with bowel movements and urinary problems, pain during sex, and unusual spotting or bleeding. Symptoms can worsen over time.

Women should always try conservative treatments before considering surgery. Strengthening the pelvic floor throughout pregnancy and after childbirth is especially important in avoiding pelvic organ prolapse later in life.

Physical therapists can offer personal instruction on locating, isolating and strengthening the pelvic floor, and may employ biofeedback therapy, pelvic massage or the use of vaginal weights. Doctors may also recommend the use of a vaginal pessary to keep pelvic organs in place.

In recent years, many women have had corrective surgical procedures using transvaginal mesh to strengthen the pelvic floor. The complications associated with transvaginal mesh are not always reversible, and include organ perforation, mesh erosion and the need for revision surgery.

These complications have prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a warning stating that most cases of prolapse can be corrected without mesh and that mesh can expose patients to greater risk.

Women should ask their doctors about all of their surgical repair options, which can include using the patient’s own tissues or biologic products.

Linda Grayling writes for Drugwatch.com. Linda has a number of professional interests, including keeping up with the latest developments in the medical field. Join the Drugwatch community on our Facebook page to find out more.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

How to Do a Kegel: Different Positions Can Improve Your Performance

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor Weakness

This blog is an addendum to our 11-part article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. We thought it relevant to add this blog post since the first 2 New Year’s Resolutions are all about Kegels and pelvic floor muscle exercises! Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

How to do a Kegel for Newbies
There are tons of articles out there that talk about how you can do Kegels while waiting in line at the grocery store, while driving car, or while sitting at your office desk. Yup, even we have been guilty of writing those types of articles. We talk about doing Kegels in these various places because we want to emphasize the fact that adding Kegels and other exercises for your pelvic floor muscles does NOT have to be difficult, complicated, or impossible. We try to emphasize that Kegels can be done whenever you have a spare minute or two, with the goal of encouraging more women to do Kegels for their pelvic health.

But here’s the thing … for the woman who has never done Kegels or the woman who is not doing a Kegel correctly, trying to do these exercises while sitting in a car or standing in the grocery line is going to be next to impossible. For these women, it is best to start doing Kegels from positions of less resistance, such as lying down or lying on her side. If you think about it, doing Kegels in these positions make sense. After all, in both sitting and standing positions gravity exerts a strong downward pull on everything, including the pelvic floor muscles. Since the goal of Kegels is to pull the pelvic floor muscles upward and inward, any woman in a sitting or standing position has to work against the force of gravity … which is no small force! If a woman has never done Kegels or has difficulty doing Kegels, fighting gravity while doing these exercises just doesn’t make sense!

Best Positions for Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises
Now that we’ve established that doing pelvic floor muscle exercises, such as Kegels, while sitting or standing is not ideal for beginners or women struggling with these exercises, let’s talk about strong positions for these women. The best positions for these women to start practicing Kegels are supine and side-lying. In regular human words, supine and side-lying mean this:

  • Supine: This just means that you lie on your back with your legs stretched out in a relaxed position (you can do this on your bed or on the floor, whichever is most comfortable for you)
  • Side-Lying: As the name implies, you lie on your side with your legs bent at a relaxed and comfortable angle (again, on the bed or floor)

With either of these positions, feel free to use a pillow to support your neck if necessary (our goal is your pelvic health, not to give you a pain in the neck!). The side-lying position offers the least resistance, but can also be a bit awkward for some women. Try both positions and see which one seems more comfortable for you. In fact, you might try both positions and try to do a Kegel contraction in both. Also remember that if you want to troubleshoot  your Kegels, you’ll need to be able to place one hand between your legs.

We suggest that you try doing Kegels in the supine position first. If you continue to have trouble doing a correct Kegel , then move to the side-lying position and try the contractions again there. If you are new to doing Kegels or are not sure you are doing them correctly, please check this post  to test yourself. If you continue having trouble doing a correct Kegel contraction in either the supine or side-lying positions, then seek the help of a specialist in women’s pelvic health.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

How to Do a Kegel: Do You Know How?

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor Weakness

This blog is an addendum to our 11-part article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. We thought it relevant to add this blog post since the first 2 New Year’s Resolutions are all about Kegels and pelvic floor muscle exercises! Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Do You Know How to Do a Kegel, Really?
For many women, this sounds like a silly question. Of course women know how to do a Kegel. After all, women are often handed direction sheets on how to do a Kegel–whether post-partum or as an alternative therapy for symptoms such as urinary leakage. Just in case you’re not sure about the vocabulary we are using here, a Kegel is a pelvic floor muscle contraction developed by Dr. Arnold Kegel to help women improve their pelvic floor.

So who doesn’t know how to do a Kegel, right?

Wrong.

It turns out that about 50% of women cannot do a Kegel (or contraction of the pelvic floor muscles) correctly. What do these women do wrong?

  • contract the wrong muscles (such as the thigh or buttock muscles)
  • contract no muscles (including the pelvic floor muscles)
  • forget to release the muscles between contractions
  • push the pelvic floor muscles downward and outward rather than pulling them up and in

And these are just a few of the possible problems that women could encounter when learning how to do a Kegel based on written instructions alone. The negative result is that women who do Kegels incorrectly then assume that Kegels do not work for alleviating symptoms of urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, or decreased sexual sensation. They could not be more wrong! If you don’t believe us, check out the statistics on how well Kegels work to alleviate these types of symptoms.

How to Do a Kegel Correctly
So if at least 50% of women are doing Kegels incorrectly based on written instructions alone, what should those women do? Simple: troubleshoot the Kegel. This exercise for your pelvic floor muscles is simple to troubleshoot if you can create about 45 minutes of quiet time in your house … alone! Do whatever you have to do to get the kids, hubby, and pets out of the way. Turn off your phone ringers and pager sounds. This may seem like a lot of work just to troubleshoot the Kegel, but you’ll find this small investment of time well worth it!

Once you’ve created an oasis of quiet in your home, follow these steps to troubleshoot your Kegel. Be aware that you will need to be willing to touch yourself in your pelvic region. If you are unwilling to do this, then please refer to our blog post on getting help from a physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health.

How to Do a Kegel

  1. To prepare yourself, wash your hands thoroughly, and then remove your pants and underwear (if you feel comfortable doing so). Lie on your bed (or the floor, if you prefer) face up with your legs straight out in a relaxed position. You may want to cover yourself with a light blanket for comfort.
  2. Place two fingertips of one hand between your legs on the perineum, which is the space between your vagina and your anus. You will be using these two fingers to feel whether your pelvic floor muscles pull up and in when you do a Kegel. Place your other hand under your buttock, slightly toward the outside edge. With this hand, you will be testing whether you tighten your buttock muscles when you do a Kegel contraction. Note that you want to avoid tightening your buttock muscles when you do a Kegel.
  3. Now do a Kegel (or pelvic floor muscle contraction). Not sure how to do this? No worries. Just picture that you are in a crowded elevator and you have intestinal gas. To prevent yourself from passing gas, you tighten certain muscles in your pelvic region, right? These are the same muscles you tighten to do a correct Kegel. As you do so, feel whether there is an inward and upward contraction where you have your two fingers (on the perineum). If you are doing a correct Kegel, you should feel this slight “in and up” sensation. At the same time, you should feel NO tightening of your buttock muscles. Now release the contraction. Releasing your muscles between contractions is VERY important because a lack of release can lead to over-tightening of the pelvic floor muscles, as well as pelvic pain and other unwanted side effects.
  4. Now repeat the process, this time moving the hand that was on your buttock to your inner thigh. Keep your other hand on your perineum, between your legs. Do another Kegel contraction, checking again that the perineum has a slight inward and upward pull, while your thigh muscle remains relaxed. Release the contraction.
  5. Finally, move your hand from your inner thigh to your abdomen. Repeat the process and ensure that your abdominal muscles do not push outwards as you do your Kegel. Again release the contraction.

If you were able to follow these instructions on how to do a Kegel without tightening your thigh or buttock muscles, and without pushing out your abdominal muscles, during each contraction, then you DO know how to do a Kegel. If, on the other hand you felt your thigh or buttock muscles tightening (or your abdominals pushing outward), you need to slow down and retrain yourself how to do a Kegel.

Taking Your Time Doing Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises
If you found yourself doing your Kegels incorrectly based on the above instructions, then you have two options: you can retrain yourself to do a correct Kegel or you can get help from a specialist in women’s pelvic health. If you want to try to retrain your pelvic floor muscles yourself, simply follow the instructions given above. As you do each Kegel, consciously focus on contracting your pelvic floor muscles while keeping your thigh and buttock muscles relaxed. If you tend to push your abdominal muscles outward, focus on using them to help you pull your pelvic floor muscles inward and upward.

Take your time practicing these contractions. You may need to move your hand from thigh to buttock to abdominal muscles. Touching these muscles can help you consciously relax them even as you tighten your pelvic muscles. At first it may take you up to 10 slow practice contractions to do a correct Kegel. Don’t worry. Be patient with yourself. Remember that you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about your pelvic floor muscles, so it may take a while for your brain and body to make the proper connections necessary to do a correct Kegel.

If you try to retrain your pelvic muscles yourself but are unsuccessful, we suggest you seek the help of a women’s pelvic health specialist  right away. Not only will this save you a lot of frustration, but getting help means that you will have far less to “unlearn” than if you keep trying to troubleshoot the Kegel by yourself.

Don’t worry! Learning how to do a kegel isn’t rocket science … sometimes you just need to take a little time to learn how to do it right or get some help. Either option is perfectly wonderful, and we applaud you for your focus on your pelvic health!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Pelvic Floor Exercises: How a Physical Therapist Can Help Improve Your Results

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor Weakness

This blog is part of an 11 article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Get this: 50% of women cannot identify or contract the appropriate muscles to do pelvic floor exercises correctly by following only written results.

That’s right … we said 50%! No wonder there are so many women out there who think that pelvic floor exercises (also called Kegels) don’t work. Chances are that at least 50% of these women are not contracting their pelvic floor muscles properly, or not even contracting their pelvic floor muscles at all. In fact, women commonly contract other muscles–such as thigh or buttock muscles–instead of pelvic floor muscles. The result is that their thighs and buttocks are nicely toned, but their pelvic floor muscles remain neglected and out-of-shape! The other result is that if you have a New Year’s resolution to improve your pelvic health, you won’t achieve your goal if you are exercising your pelvic floor muscles incorrectly.

Do You Know How to Do a Kegel?
This might be a difficult question for you to answer. After all, if you are following written instructions on how to do a Kegel, you might THINK you are doing the exercise correctly, but how do you really know? One of the best ways to find out whether you are exercising your pelvic floor muscles correctly is to have a specialist test you.

Examples of specialists include physical therapists specializing in women’s pelvic health, urologists, and ob/gyns. All of these medical professionals will test the strength and correctness of your Kegel by asking you to tighten your pelvic floor muscles around a finger inserted into your vagina. While this does not sound like the most fun experience in the world, this test WILL help you determine whether you have been properly exercising your pelvic floor muscles … or just wasting your time!

If you have been wasting your time, the good news is that your specialist can either help you correct the way you do your Kegels, or recommend someone who can work with you. For instance, many women who cannot do a correct Kegel are referred to physical therapists who specialize in women’s pelvic health.

Do You Need a Physical Therapist to Help You Correctly Exercise Your Pelvic Floor Muscles?
Physical therapists specializing in women’s pelvic health work with women over a number of sessions to locate and properly contract the correct pelvic floor muscles. What can a physical therapist do for you that you can’t do for yourself? A physical therapist can help you in many ways.

First, the therapist will most likely take a “hands on” approach, which means that they will put their hands in various areas of your pelvic region to help you “feel” when you contract the correct pelvic floor muscles, as well as helping you “feel” when you are contracting the wrong muscles, such as your buttock or thigh muscles. Just having the sensation of a therapist’s hands in your pelvic region can help your brain make the connection to the correct pelvic floor muscles for a Kegel.

Second, your specialist has tools that you don’t that can help further help you identify and contract the right pelvic floor muscles. Two commonly used tools include biofeedback machines and electrical stimulation devices. Biofeedback machines are simple devices that give you either visual or auditory feedback when you contract the right muscles. This additional feedback helps you learn to contract the right muscles more quickly. The electrical stimulation device involves placing electrodes in your vagina or rectum for short periods of time. The device delivers very mild electrical stimulation, which actually lightly contracts and tones the correct pelvic floor muscles. This form of stimulation is especially useful for women who have little or no sensation in their pelvic floor muscles, and are thus unable to contract those muscles. Your specialist may also have you use vaginal weights, which are weighted plastic cones inserted into the vagina for short periods of time. As you hold the weights inside your vagina to prevent them from dropping out, you tighten and tone your pelvic floor muscles. As your muscles become stronger, your specialist will increase the weight until you can hold heavier weights.

The third way your specialist can help you is by designing a pelvic floor muscle exercise program customized to your current level of pelvic fitness. This prevents you from exercising your pelvic muscles too little or too much. Too much exercise can lead to excessive tightening of your pelvic floor muscles, which can result in pelvic pain and other unwanted side effects. Doing too few contractions means that your pelvic floor muscles won’t get toned, and you won’t get the results that you want.

By working with a custom program, you exercise your pelvic muscles at just the right level. As your muscles get stronger and have more stamina, your specialist will change your program to match by increasing the number of contractions or the length that you hold each contraction. With this kind of customized support, you are much more likely to achieve the results you want, whether that means alleviating symptoms of urine leakage, reducing signs of pelvic organ prolapse, or improving your sexual sensation.

Women’s Pelvic Health and Your New Year’s Resolution
Is women’s pelvic health still a New Year’s Resolution? If so, good for you! And, if you have are having difficulty achieving the results you want by doing pelvic floor muscle exercises at your home, it may be time to get help from a specialist. A women’s pelvic health specialist can teach you how to do a Kegel correctly, can design a custom program just for you, and has a wide range of tools that can help you achieve lasting results. You may need to get a referral for this kind of specialist from your family doctor, urologist, or ob/gyn, so we encourage you to call for an appointment to get the ball rolling right away!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercises That Actually Work

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesUrinary Incontinence

This blog is part of an 11 article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Pelvic floor muscles … those mystical muscles we women have “down there,” which we can’t see and which do so much for us. What do our pelvic floor muscles for us? A bunch. Here’s a short list of the important roles they play in our anatomy:

  • support pelvic organs against the effects of gravity
  • prevent urinary leakage and allows urination when needed
  • keep pelvic organs from sagging down and out
  • control the tightening and relaxation of urethra, vagina, and anus as needed
  • contribute to pleasurable sexual sensation

And that’s just the short list of what our pelvic floor muscles do for us every day, all day (and all night). As you might have guessed, keeping these very important muscles fit and toned is important for our quality of life.

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Do Kegels Work?
Surprisingly, many women have heard of the term “Kegel” but don’t really know what it means. Or, a woman might have a vague idea of what a Kegel is, but not really know how to do a Kegel (or how to do a CORRECT Kegel). So what is a Kegel? The word “Kegel” was a term first coined in 1948 by Dr. Arnold Kegel. He introduced the Kegel as an exercise for the pelvic floor muscles, in which these muscles are alternately contracted and relaxed. The goal of doing Kegels is to strengthen and tone the pelvic floor muscles so that they can provide passive support all day long (such as keeping the pelvic organs in place) as well as offer active support (such as keeping urine in the bladder when you sneeze). The term Kegel has become so popular that some people now refer to the pelvic floor muscles collectively as the Kegel muscle.

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is a Kegel?” the second question is, “Do Kegels work?” The answer is “Yes”–provided that these pelvic floor muscle exercises are done correctly. What do we mean when we say that these exercises must be done correctly? We mean that when you do a pelvic floor muscle contraction, you contract only the pelvic floor muscles without contracting other muscles such as the abdominal, thigh, or buttock muscles.

If you are not sure whether you know how to do a correct Kegel, you can easily troubleshoot this exercise with our no-cost downloadable ebook, “What’s Up Down There?” Just go HERE to download the ebook.

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercising at Your Level of Fitness
Another important note when beginning a pelvic floor muscle retraining program is to ensure that you exercise according to your level of pelvic fitness. In other words, you want to exercise your pelvic floor muscles just enough that you begin to tone and strengthen them, but not so much that you overtire them or actually begin to contract them tightly all the time. If you try to do too many pelvic floor muscle contractions, your muscles will begin to tire and you will start using other muscles (buttock, thigh, or abdominal) to compensate. This will decrease the benefits of your exercise program. The other danger of doing too many contractions for your level of fitness is that you may actually begin to hold your pelvic muscles in a contracted state all the time, which can lead to pelvic pain and other unwanted side effects.

In our practices, we have women test their level of pelvic muscle floor fitness before designing a custom program that matches their level of fitness. If you would like to test yourself and start a home pelvic floor muscle retraining program, check out the detailed step-by-step plan outlined in our book. This program is a definite no-brainer if you are a “do-it-yourself” kind of gal!

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercising Them Really Does Work
If you have heard rumors that Kegels are ineffective for improving pelvic health, or if your own experience shows you that pelvic floor muscle exercises don’t work, we urge you to review the research. Studies show that, when done correctly, pelvic floor muscle retraining really does improve women’s pelvic health. These exercises can improve symptoms of all types of urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. These exercises can also improve your sexual sensation and pleasure. Check out the research in THIS blog post.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

The Doctor Is In: Women’s Pelvic Health, Fact or Fiction?

by GeneralKegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Organ Prolapse

1. Urinary incontinence (an indicator of poor pelvic health) is a normal sign of aging.

Fiction: Urinary incontinence or leakage is not normal at any age. Acceptance of this health condition as a normal sign of aging is the second most common reason women don’t seek help from a physician. Embarrassment about talking to a doctor about urine leakage tops the list, followed by women thinking that urinary incontinence “wasn’t enough of a problem.” As a result, less than 50% of women with urinary incontinence seek medical help, and those who do get help wait almost seven years. The good news for women who do seek help is that urinary incontinence can be improved in 8 out of 10 cases according to the Agency of Healthcare Research and Policy.

2. Kegels and similar pelvic floor exercises can improve a woman’s pelvic health.

Fact: Studies show that pelvic floor exercises, when done correctly and according to a woman’s state of pelvic muscle fitness, can relieve symptoms of all three types of urinary incontinence (stress, overactive bladder/urge, and mixed), pelvic organ prolapse, decreased sexual sensation or response, and general pelvic floor weakness. Women often feel that pelvic floor exercises such as Kegels are ineffective because these women are not doing the exercises properly. In fact, studies show that almost 50% of women cannot do a correct pelvic floor muscle contraction with only basic written instructions for guidance. Incorrectly done, these muscle contractions are indeed ineffective and may even worsen some symptoms of poor pelvic health.

3. Conservative therapies for poor pelvic health (urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and decreased sexual sensation) are not effective.

Fiction (with some fact): While it is true that not every conservative approach for relieving symptoms will work for every woman, it is also true that most women will be able to find relief with one or more of these approaches. Some women are able to reduce symptoms by using a combination of conservative therapies, such as taking medication plus stopping smoking and losing weight. Other women find success by trying multiple different therapies until they find an effective approach. Persistence is often the key to success. Some women, however, may have such an advanced condition (as with severe pelvic organ prolapse) that surgery is a better option. Research indicates that conservative therapies are more effective when used as soon as the first symptoms occur.

4. Childbirth does not put women at risk for poor pelvic health.

Fiction: Childbirth is a major risk factor for urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and decreased sexual sensation. In fact, giving birth is a major reason that women are twice as likely to suffer from urinary incontinence as men. Despite recent controversy over the subject, studies indicate that the method of delivery–vaginal versus Caesarian–has little effect on whether a mother will have urine leakage symptoms post-partum.

5. A woman will know if she has poor pelvic health.

Fiction: Research indicates that between 43 and 76 percent of women have some degree of pelvic organ prolapse (in which one or more pelvic organs have “fallen” out of position). At the same time, many of these women are not aware that they have this condition because they have no apparent symptoms. Some women may experience symptoms of prolapse, such as low back pain or chronic constipation, but not know the cause. Similarly, many women with naturally weak pelvic floor muscles, another form of poor pelvic health, may not be aware that they are not having the best possible sexual experience.

6. Most women can benefit from doing a pelvic floor muscle exercise program.

Fact: Pelvic floor muscles are like any other muscle in the body: they benefit from regular exercise. Because pelvic muscles are not visible, most women tend to forget about exercising them, even if they have engaged in a pelvic muscle exercise program in the past. The phrase “Out of sight, out of mind” is very applicable to pelvic floor muscles, as is the phrase, “Use ’em or lose ’em!” (especially after menopause). Women who should not start a pelvic muscle exercise program on their own include women who are under a physician’s care for a medical condition, women who have hyper-toned pelvic muscles, or women whose pelvic floor muscles are too weak to do a proper Kegel-type contraction. If you are not sure whether you should proceed with a self-guided program, check in with your doctor first and seek help from a physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health.

7. Surgeries to alleviate symptoms of poor pelvic health conditions are risky.

Fiction: While all surgery carries a certain amount of risk, most surgical procedures for urinary incontinence (the most common form of poor pelvic health) are minimally-invasive, low-risk, and can be done on an outpatient basis. Surgeries for pelvic organ prolapse and some forms of urinary incontinence can be more complex, but have a high rate of success and few complications. As with all types of surgery, you will get the most effective treatment by researching and finding the surgeon who best understands and can accommodate your needs. In addition, pelvic surgery, like conservative therapies, is more effective when performed sooner rather than later. This means that you should seek medical attention the moment you become aware that you may have one or more symptoms of poor pelvic health.

Elizabeth E. Houser, M.D., a board-certified urologist in private practice for many years, is now a consultant in the field of women’s pelvic health. Stephanie Riley Hahn, P.T. is a physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health. Their book, A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Health: Expert Advice for Women of All Ages, is now available for pre-order from the JHU Press.

You can also see this blog post as well as other terrific content on the John Hopkin’s University Press blog.

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

Kegels: Learning to Put Your Pelvic Floor Muscles on Auto-Pilot

by Kegels
Here’s something you may not know about a healthy pelvic floor muscles: they work on auto-pilot!What do we mean by this? We mean that healthy pelvic floor muscles automatically work in concert to keep urine in your bladder until you choose to urinate. They also work together when you go to the bathroom to allow urine to flow until the bladder is empty.

Yes, Kegels DO Work When Done Correctly and Appropriately

by Decreased Sexual SensationKegelsOveractive BladderPelvic Organ ProlapseUrge IncontinenceUrinary Incontinence
Yeah, yeah … we’ve heard it all. Women tell us (a urologist and a physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health) that they do Kegels or other pelvic floor exercises to no avail. “Kegels don’t work” for women’s urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, or decreased sexual sensation. We hear that all the time.