Pelvic Floor

 Our years of experience in helping people to cure and prevent pelvic floor disorders have given us a lot of insight into the best way to protect these delicate muscles. By paying a little bit of extra attention to these 6 parts of your life you can futureproof your pelvic floor muscles and ensure you stay healthy and happy!

 

1. Pelvic Floor Exercises

We’re passionate about the need for everyone to keep up with their kegel exercises, and the facts back us up! Pelvic floor exercises are recommended by medical professionals around the world as the best way to tackle pelvic disorders. Symptoms like incontinence and prolapse are massively reduced and even totally cured, in just a few minutes a day!

 

What is My Pelvic Floor?

What are Kegels?
Kegel exercises are designed to strengthen the pelvic floor, which provides support for the uterus, small intestine, bladder, and rectum. The pelvic floor is a layer of muscles and tissues that extend from the pubic bone to the coccyx (your tailbone). They can be performed manually or with an electronic pelvic floor exerciser which utilises small electric currents to stimulate a contraction within the muscles. Kegels do tighten the vagina but not by tightening the vaginal muscles, as some people may think. Kegels strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that surround the vagina. The best thing about these exercises is that they can be done just about anywhere, anytime, without anyone else knowing!

Kegel exercises work your pelvic floor muscles and can help with both urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction. It's extremely unlikely

The group of muscles that make up the pelvic floor work in the same way as any other muscle in the body. Relaxing and contracting to move the surrounding ligaments, bones and organs. The only voluntary function of the pelvic floor muscle is the same contraction you do for your pelvic floor exercises; an inward lift and squeeze around your vagina, rectum and urethra.

But what do the pelvic floor muscles do when they contract and relax?

• Healthy urination and bowel movements - A strong pelvic floor is essential to have voluntary movement of both the sphincter and urethra. They must coordinate to have a full bowel movement. Hence the weakening of these muscles often results in incontinence or conversely, constipation.
• Aids sexual function - Alongside a variety of psychological and biological issues, the pelvic floor muscles are essential in satisfactory erectile function and ejaculation

You might have heard of your pelvic floor muscles, also known as your Kegel or PC muscles. These all refer to the same collection of muscles, fibres and ligaments that work together to support your pelvic organs and give you urogenital control (control of both urinary and genital organs) in your pelvic floor.

The pelvic floor is made up of three main layers of muscle:

• The superficial group - This is the group of muscles that are found at the entrance to the vagina in women. They help with sexual function and help you to control the bladder. These muscles can weaken as a result of childbirth, the menopause, or gradually as you age.
• The urogenital muscle group - This is the group of muscles that surround the urinary and

Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when one of your pelvic organs ‘drops’ because it is no longer held in the correct position. There are four stages of prolapse, 1 being the mildest and 4 being the most severe – stage 3 and 4 are also known as procidentia, which means the prolapsed organ protrudes out of the body.

Any pelvic organ can prolapse, and common prolapse conditions include bladder prolapse (cystocele), urethral prolapse, uterine (womb) prolapse, vaginal vault prolapse, bowel prolapse (enterocele) and rectal prolapse (rectocele).

Before resorting to surgery, there are other, more conservative treatment options for prolapse, including pelvic floor exercise (which we of course recommend strongly) and the use of a vaginal pessary. However, if your surgeon decides

Fibroids, or uterine fibroids, are small growths that grow in and around the womb. They are non-cancerous and most of the time, women don’t even know that they have them. Fibroids are often discovered by chance during routine pelvic examinations or scans. However they can also cause problems such as pain or heavy bleeding.

If fibroids cause problems, they can be treated with medication, however if this is not successful, surgery may be recommended.

Types of Fibroids

Intramural fibroids - grow in the uterine wall and are the most common type of fibroid.

Submucosal fibroids - grow on the inside of the womb (uterus) and extend into the uterine cavity.

Subserol fibroids - grow on the lining between the uterus and the pelvic cavity (outisde of the womb).

The Kegel8 Guide to Fibroid Surgery

There are a number of different surgical alternatives available for the treatment of fibroids if they become a problem. The type of surgery that

If you have been told you need pelvic floor surgery, you no doubt have many questions. Whether it be hysterectomy, prolapse surgery or fibroid surgery, with any pelvic surgery it is vitally important to strengthen the pelvic floor before and after surgery to get the best surgical outcome, because no surgery can strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.

Vulvodynia is a common condition that affects as many as 1 in 10 women, and it can affect women of all ages, from around 20 onwards. Vulvodynia can be really distressing, and can cause daily pain and prevent women from going about their daily activities – this is known as chronic pain. Find out more in our Kegel8 Guide to Vulvodynia.

What is Vulvodynia?

Vulvodynia is the name given to persistent or chronic pain in the vulva. This might either be a pain all the time – this is called unprovoked vulvodinia, or the pain may only be triggered when the area is touched, for example with a tampon or during sex.

Vulvodynia

Pelvic tightness, or pelvic tension, is something that affects a lot of women at some point in their lives and it can be really painful and even affect your quality of life. As well as causing pelvic pain, if your pelvic floor is tight, it can lead to incontinence and intimacy problems.

Symptoms of Tight Pelvic Muscles

The main symptom of tight pelvic muscles is pelvic pain – unlike other causes of pelvic pain like infection, pelvic inflammatory disease or endometriosis, you will just feel painful, tight muscles and muscle spasm, just like if you had muscular pain in your arm or leg.

• Weak Pelvic Floor – if your muscles are tight & painful all the time, this can lead to muscles weakening, causing incontinence and even prolapse
• Intimate Problems – tight