Pelvic Floor

Talking about this not talked about issue

Having a “wee” problem when you sneeze, jump, run, or when something is just so funny that you literally wet your pants laughing, means your pelvic floor is probably needing some extra TLC.

Your pelvic floor is a complex group of muscles that sits like a hammock at the bottom of your core in your pelvis. Its role is to support the bladder, uterus, vagina/ sexual tract and bowel/rectum, helping these organs to function properly.

Pelvic floor disorder is when the pelvic floor may be too weak or even too tight to support healthy functioning. This disorder is debilitating on physical and mental health and if symptoms are ignored they can worsen. Men can suffer too, although women are more commonly affected.

Some of the symptoms can include urinary incontinence (“wee” problem) and faecal incontinence (the inability to control the passage of faeces or wind – you could call it symptom “number two”).

Pelvic organ prolapse, when pelvic muscles and tissue become too weak to continue to support the pelvic organs (uterus, bladder, cervix, vagina, or rectum), is a more extreme symptom that results in your pelvic organs pushing down into or out of the vagina. (Pelvic organ prolapse is given the acronym POP, which seems is a little close to home.)

Other symptoms may include feeling the need to urinate despite having an empty bladder, constipation, having the sudden urge to urinate and pain during sex.

What can you do?

If you have pelvic floor disorder symptoms give your doctor a call. If you are putting off going to the doctor about your symptoms you could line it up to be part of your visit when you go in for a smear.

Depending on the cause and your individual situation there are a number of ways that symptoms may be treated by your GP. These may include doing pelvic floor exercises, either on your own or with a physiotherapist that you have been referred to. Physiotherapists and osteopaths specialising in the pelvic floor can tailor rehabilitation to suit each woman and are experts at coaching women through doing their exercises.

Pelvic floor exercises can help to prevent, decrease or resolve pelvic floor disorder symptoms, however, these exercises are often not practised correctly or at all. This may be because women don’t know how to practise them or embarrassment may prevent women from seeking professional help.

When exercises are done incorrectly it can make the issue worse, so if you are unsure if you are doing them properly it’s best to see a professional to get the guidance you need.

Even if you don’t have any symptoms of pelvic floor disorder you should still do pelvic floor exercises to prevent pelvic floor disorder in the future.

Many professionals recommend that once you have got the hang of doing pelvic floor exercises sitting down, you should also engage your pelvic floor during everyday physical activities and exercise to protect and strengthen it even further. Yoga and Pilates classes can be a great place to start for some women.

One big thing we can all do to help ourselves and others is to stop normalising the symptoms. Women may say “I’ve had a few children so it’s normal to wee a bit sometimes” or “it happens to lots of women so it doesn’t matter.” When we normalise the symptoms like this it becomes very easy to just ignore our bodies.

But pelvic floor symptoms, when not addressed, can gradually get worse so this is a “wee” problem not to be ignored.