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.

 

woman lifting monitor

Pelvic Organ Prolapse: What’s With All the Heavy Lifting?

by Pelvic Floor WeaknessPelvic Organ ProlapsePOPUrinary Incontinence

woman lifting monitorIf you have been diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and you lead an active lifestyle or have a physically-demanding job, chances are good that your lifestyle and/or your job may have contributed to your condition.

Pelvic organ prolapse describes the condition in which one or more of your pelvic organs sags downward, or “falls” out of place. Pelvic organs that can prolapse include the bladder, small intestine, large intestine, or uterus. How many women have POP? Between 43% and 76% of women have POP, but don’t experience any symptoms. Less than 10% of women with POP notice symptoms, such as feeling pressure on the vaginal wall, feeling as if one is sitting on a ball, seeing a bulge falling out of the vagina, urinary incontinence, difficulty urinating, being constipated, low back pain, or feeling pain during sex.

POP and Heavy Lifting
While there are many risk factors for POP, a surprising number of those risk factors are associated with heavy lifting of one sort or another. Pregnancy and childbirth (either vaginal or Cesarean) top the list of factors. If you think about it, pregnancy is one of the most vigorous kinds of heavy lifting a woman can do. Plus, this form of heavy lifting is long-term–about nine continuous months!

Another kind of heavy lifting that can contribute to POP is work-related. If your job requires you to lift, move, or otherwise handle heavy objects on a regular basis, your work may be a big contributing factor to POP. All of this lifting puts pressure and strain on the pelvic organs and their supporting tendons, ligaments, and muscles. When the strain becomes too much, one or more pelvic organs will literally slip out of place, causing the symptoms described above.

Constipation causes straining similar to that of frequently lifting heavy objects. If you suffer from chronic constipation, then you are putting pressure on your pelvic organs several times per day. That’s a lot of heavy lifting for your pelvic organ support system.

Finally, your weight is a consideration. When it comes to your pelvic floor muscles, every pound of weight you carry about your pelvic region exerts a strong downward push. That means your pelvic floor support system has to do “heavy lifting” whenever you are sitting or standing. This is doubly true if you have an active or athletic lifestyle. Bouncing around in an aerobics class adds heavy impact into the equation, more than doubling the strain on your pelvic floor.

Lifestyle Changes to Reduce the Risk of POP
If you are at risk for POP because of any of the reasons listed above, it’s not too late to make some lifestyle changes. Simple changes that will help can include:

  • lose weight
  • change jobs to avoid lifting heavy objects
  • increase fiber intake to reduce constipation
  • switch from high-impact exercise to low-impact exercise (such as swimming or walking)
  • start doing pelvic floor exercises (like Kegels), especially if you have had children
  • consider using a pessary to temporarily increase support for your pelvic organs

These are all simple conservative measures that can prevent further sagging of your pelvic organs, and can often relieve symptoms of POP. These measures have almost no side effects, and studies have shown them to be quite effective. POP doesn’t have to consign you to being an armchair athlete. Instead, try these conservative approaches and see just how active you can be. You will be surprised!

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/76029035@N02/6829303627/

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Mixed Women’s Urinary Incontinence: The Best and Worst of Both Worlds

by Mixed Urinary IncontinenceOveractive BladderUrinary Incontinence

If you have women’s urinary incontinence, specifically mixed urinary incontinence, then you probably know exactly what the phrase “The Best and Worst of Both Worlds” means. Women with mixed urinary incontinence suffer from symptoms of both stress and urge incontinence. Women with stress urinary incontinence leak urine every time they put stress on the bladder or abdominal cavity, such as when sneezing, laughing, coughing, or exercising. With urge urinary incontinence (or the milder form, overactive bladder), women experience strong and sudden urges to urinate, often resulting in a urinary accident with copious amounts of leakage. Women with urge incontinence or overactive bladder also have to urinate frequently, and often at night.

The Worst of Both Worlds
Women with mixed urinary incontinence suffer the symptoms of both stress and urge incontinence–at the same time! When it comes to women’s urinary incontinence, having the symptoms of mixed incontinence is like living in the “worst of both worlds.” These women feel like they have to be prepared for urinary leakage at ANY time! Women with mixed incontinence have symptoms that are both more severe AND more frequent than women who have only stress or urge incontinence. In fact, studies show that women with mixed incontinence rate their quality of life as being more strongly affected than women with the other types of urinary incontinence. Unfortunately, about one-third of women with urinary incontinence suffer from this form. That’s the bad news. That truly is the worst of both worlds!

The Best of Both Worlds
Now here’s the good news: women with mixed urinary incontinence are more likely to seek medical help for their condition sooner than their counterparts with only stress or urge incontinence. Studies demonstrate that the severity of a woman’s urinary incontinence symptoms is a good predictor of her likelihood for seeking help. Another bit of good news is this: because women with mixed incontinence are more likely to seek medical help, physicians have more experience helping women with this condition. What this means for you is that, should you seek medical help for your mixed incontinence, your doctor is likely have plenty of experience with your condition and know the available treatments.

How Your Doctor Will Treat Your Mixed Urinary Incontinence
With mixed urinary incontinence, your physicians first task to is determine which form of incontinence (stress or urge) is dominant in your case. Your doctor will then recommend options to treat the more dominant condition first. Once that condition has been addressed, your doctor will then suggest therapies for the secondary condition. For instance, suppose your form of mixed urinary incontinence is dominated by stress incontinence. This means you are more likely to leak urine when you put stress on your bladder and abdomen, such as when you cough, sneeze, laugh, exercise, or step off a curb. You also have urge incontinence, but you leak urine less often due to this condition. In your case, your doctor will recommend treatment options for stress incontinence first, which might include pelvic floor retraining, lifestyle and behavior modification, or even surgery. Once you find a combination of treatments that alleviate your stress urinary incontinence symptoms to your satisfaction, your physician will then address your urge incontinence symptoms. For instance, she may recommend that you take medication to relieve your urge incontinence symptoms.

Make sense? Good. So … if you are suffering from mixed urinary incontinence, now is the time to pick up the phone and call your doctor. Your quality of life is most probably being severely impacted by this condition, and there is no need to suffer any longer. We strongly encourage you to seek medical guidance now so that you can look forward to a time in your near future when you will be high and dry!

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.

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: 5 Things You Should Know When Seeking Help

by GeneralUrinary Incontinence

If you suffer from women’s urinary incontinence and you have finally decided to seek help we applaud you! Why do we applaud? Because about half of all women with urinary incontinence never seek help, and thus never get a thorough and correct medical diagnosis. Plus, the women who do seek medical help wait, on average, almost seven years before doing so. That’s a long time to cope with symptoms of women’s urinary incontinence!

If you have decided to seek medical help for your urinary incontinence, you will be glad you did. Just know that the journey to relieving your symptoms is just that — a journey, not a pit stop. You may have to seek the care of more than one medical professional to get the help you need. To ease your journey, we have written five tips below. Hopefully these tips will help you get the medical support you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

5 Things You Should Know …
If you have already scheduled an appointment with your family doctor or general practitioner to discuss your urinary incontinence, then you are a giant leap ahead of the affected women who never seek help. Bravo! Now that you have your appointment, here are 5 points of information to help you get the most out of your journey toward freedom from urinary incontinence.

Tip #1: Prepare for Your Appointment
Preparing for your first appointment will help you maximize the time you spend with your family doctor or general practitioner. Preparation is simple. A week before your appointment, begin observing and jotting down your symptoms, even if you know them by heart. Having a list of symptoms–including how many times per day you urinate, how much you urinate each time, how many times per week you have a leakage accident, how much urine you leak, triggers for urinary leakage, and when your symptoms began–will help you communicate quickly and clearly with your doctor. Also list all your current medications, and any other health issues you have, even if you feel they are unrelated to your urinary incontinence. Finally, if you are afraid that you might “chicken out” out the last minute and avoid talking about your urinary leakage issues, enlist the help of a good friend. Ask your friend to accompany you to your fist appointment and gently remind you (if necessary) about the reason for your visit if you somehow “forget”!

Tip #2: Prepare a List of Questions
As you can probably tell, lists are important in this process! Preparing a list of questions to ask doctor about your condition will help you get the answers you need about your condition. If you don’t know what to ask your doctor, check out this list as a “template” for making your own list.

Tip #3: Know What Your Doctor Will Ask You
In addition to asking your doctor the questions you want answered, you also need to be able to answer your doctor’s questions about your condition. For your doctor to be able to help you, you need to be able to discuss your condition honestly and without embarrassment. Knowing ahead of time the questions your doctor will likely ask you can help. Prepare for your appointment by scanning this list of potential questions.

Tip #4: Know That Your First Appointment Won’t Be Your Last
Your first appointment with your family doctor is just that — the first stop on your journey towards symptom relief. Chances are that your general practitioner can offer you some help with basics, such as reviewing your medications, medical history, and lifestyle habits for any triggers that may be causing your urinary leakage. For instance, some medications are diuretics and could be causing you to urinate much more frequently than normal. Chances are also good that your doctor will refer you to a specialist–probably a urologist–who will perform more specific tests to more thoroughly assess your condition. Taking the time to see the referred specialist is important because these specialists can often offer a wider range of therapies tailored specifically to your condition. If your first appointment merely leads to a referral, don’t be discouraged. A referral to a specialist is normal in the treatment protocol for treating women’s urinary incontinence, and should be regarded as progress on the journey!

Tip #5: Persist Until You are Satisfied
How do you know when your “journey” has come to an end? Simple. Your journey is complete when you are satisfied with your level of symptom relief–whether that means a major reduction in urinary leakage accidents or complete freedom from all symptoms. At the end of the day, the only one who can say whether the therapy for urinary incontinence is “good enough” is you. This means that you should not give up on seeking help until you are satisfied, even if that means combining multiple therapeutic approaches such as medication and minor surgery. In addition, you should know that your treatment choices may change with time. A conservative treatment like medication may relieve your symptoms for years, only to stop working at a certain point (such as when you reach menopause). Want to know more? Read about how your treatment options may change over time.

Armed with these 5 tips, you are now ready to embark on your journey to get the medical support you need for your women’s urinary incontinence. May the force of your persistence be with you until you are satisfied with your own health. After all, you are at the center of your own “patient-centered” healthcare model!

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.

3 Ways to Stop Stressing About Stress Urinary Incontinence

by Urinary Incontinence

The funny thing about stress urinary incontinence, or SUI, is that life stress has very little to do with causing the form of urinary leakage. However, this type of women’s urinary incontinence (one of the three major types) can create a lot of stress for affected women.

What is Stress Urinary Incontinence?
In short, the “stress” in stress urinary incontinence refers to any kind of stress or pressure put on the abdominal cavity, especially the bladder, which causes urine leakage. You know you have SUI if it causes you to leak urine anytime you put stress on your abdominal cavity by coughing, sneezing, laughing, or exercising. Depending on the severity of your condition, sometimes even a small change in body posture, such as stepping off a curb or standing up, can cause urine leakage. All of these changes to posture can put stress on your abdominal cavity.

How Can You Stop Stressing About SUI?
When it comes to SUI, or any form of urinary incontinence, you have three basic options:

1. Cope with your condition by yourself without medical advice
2. Get help from a medical adviser and use conservative means
3. Use a surgical solution to resolve your symptoms if your condition is more severe

Obviously these options start in the “do it yourself” category. There is nothing wrong with option one — coping with your condition by yourself — except that without a thorough medical screening you don’t have a precise diagnosis of your condition. In addition, you could be cheating yourself of conservative medical solutions that can make your life more comfortable and save you money (and embarrassment)! If you choose option one, you certainly won’t be alone. Almost half of all women with urinary incontinence never seek help. Those that seek help wait a long time … on average almost seven years!

What is good about the first option is that you will likely educate yourself about your condition, and become a strong self-health advocate. However, we encourage all women affected by urinary leakage to take an additional step once they have armed themselves with knowledge: get help! To be sure, knowledge is power. When you are struggling with SUI, knowledge is the power to help you speak intelligently and honestly with your doctor about your condition. This is the second option. In turn, by seeking help you empower your doctor to support you and relieve symptoms with conservative medical options including pelvic floor muscle retraining, medication, acupuncture, and suggested lifestyle changes.

In addition, if necessary, by seeking help from your doctor you discover if you might need a surgical solution to resolve your symptoms. While most of us don’t like to think about having surgery, if a simple outpatient surgery could alleviate or resolve your symptoms, wouldn’t you want to know?

We Applaud “Do It Yourself” Women!
We really do. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of woman, we applaud your efforts! We also encourage you to go one step further and just get some feedback from a trusted medical source. This expands your powers of self-healing more than you might realize. So do educate yourself by reading this blog, downloading our ebook, or just learning more about your condition. Then go one step further (maybe eventually two steps!) and get some medical feedback. You will be glad you did because it will help you stop stressing about stress urinary incontinence!

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.

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Estrogen Helps with SUI Symptoms

by Urinary Incontinence

If you suffer from stress urinary incontinence (SUI), the most common form of women’s urinary incontinence, and you are interested in conservative approaches to treating your symptoms, you may want to consider using estrogen. This form of conservative therapy is especially useful for post-menopausal women since estrogen production decreases after menopause.

How Estrogen Works for SUI Symptoms
Estrogen works to relieve symptoms of SUI primarily by thickening the urethral lining, which often helps supports the bladder and decreases symptoms of stress incontinence. The use of this hormone, especially when used long-term, has been shown to improve nerve function, rejuvenate urethral and vaginal tissues, and increase blood flow in the pelvic region. Estrogen has also been shown to decrease the chances of urinary tract infections in postmenopausal women.

While research does not necessarily back up the effectiveness of estrogen for treating symptoms of stress incontinence, the Mayo Clinic indicates that a large percentage of women find estrogen useful for decreasing urinary leakage.One of the benefits of estrogen therapy for stress incontinence is that it is available in multiple forms: cream, tablets, or a time release intravaginal ring. Studies show that the cream is the most effective form, followed by tablets and the ring.

Note that estrogen as used to treat stress incontinence is different from oral hormone replacement, which actually may worsen urinary leakage symptoms for some women. Most women work no side effects from estrogen when used specifically to treat stress incontinence.

If you are interested in using estrogen to reduce your symptoms of stress urinary incontinence, ask your urologist or specialist to find out if this conservative therapy is right for you.

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.

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Getting the Answers You Need

by Urinary Incontinence

When you finally work up the courage to call your doctor for help with your urinary incontinence, know that you have taken a giant stride towards better health. If it has taken many years for you to seek help, you should also know that you are not alone in dragging your feet. On average women with urinary incontinence wait almost 7 years before getting help

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Have You Tried Acupuncture?

by Urinary Incontinence
Most of us have probably heard of acupuncture as a conservative treatment option for all kinds of health issues, from migraine headaches to digestive issues. Did you know that this ancient Chinese healing technique has also been shown to be an effective conservative treatment for women’s urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse (POP)?

The Slushy for Urinary Incontinence

by Urinary Incontinence
If you have women’s urinary incontinence then you are probably familiar with a long list of things you can and can’t eat and drink. For instance, caffeinated drinks and acidic foods are definitely on the “don’t touch” list.On the other hand, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables top the list of foods you should eat. And while you may be very diligent about what you eat and drink, there are times when you may find yourself lapsing from your prescribed diet.