to wish that the pelvic toner advert would vanish....now!

[Hanikam]

I like to read mumsnet during quiet moments at work.
That stupid advert for the pelvic toner pops up at awkward moments.
Who says "50% of mothers have weak bladders / pelvic intolerance?"
As compared to who? non-mothers, population as a whole (including men, who might have trouble inserting the damned thing.....rectal toner maybe?)

Don't want people to look at me like I'm someone who regularly wets her knickers.

so, aibu?

trying to do pelvic floor exercises these days makes me go a bit funny.
I think I forget to breathe, and I definitely raise my eyebrows

It doesn't bother me but I do think some women are a bit uneducated about pelvic floor. On another forum some woman who had no problems with sex, weeing etc but sometimes held in bath water if she'd had a long bath was panicing she had a weak pelvic floor and she must feel terrible to her bf, despite his insistance that it was all fine and these are different things. My five year old cousin gets the "bath water" syndrome when you stand up five mins after a bath and a small bit of bath water comes out, thats just gonna happen sometimes, particuarly if you like to slouch low with your legs akimbo in the bath, some will get in! That is perfectly normal.

However the on trampoline things and laughing is obviously not normal and I do think them machines would help, I'm a bit skeptical though and think it would be just as good not wasting money. You could easily do sets of pelvic floors 3 times a day and another good way (this was from my student nursing days with a gynae doctor) is to stop mid wee, hold as long as possible and then keep going, do that every time you wee and it should help as well as you exercises, very simple and effective and no gadgets!

If you are having weeing accidents you can asked to be referred to a physio or continence clinic. I went to the clinic after having DD1, she was big and I needed forceps.
My main problem was weeing all the time. I'd go to the loo and the tap would make me need to go again. The nurse gave me a sheet I had to fill in with times I went to the toilet and how much I wee'd. Yes I pee'd into a plastic jug.
A few weeks later she went over it with me and told me I needed to retrain my bladder, holding on for an extra 5 minutes to start and building it up. It was a great help.

Second time I went I had had a bladder prolapse, I still went to the continence nurse and they measured red my ability to to hold on and how much my bladder vould hold. That's when I had the TVT op, to hold my bladder back up.

My point is, don't be embarrassed, all the nurses I came into contact t with were lovely. And don't be fobbed off by your GP. If you think something doesn't feel right demand a referral to the appropriate person.

Lainey, I was doing them in the car earlier and was raising my eyebrows and opening my mouth . I haven't got the hang of breathing at the same time yet

Eurowitch I presume you have to keep trying on the pully up one, try to lengthen the time gradually. I can't get past the count of 5 yet.

coco

Been out on the ran-dan. Well, at a playgroup meeting (rocknroll, that's me) So, in order:

Lainey - try lying on your back with a pillow under your hips and doing the exercises, a bit of gravity can help you get the feeling. Failing that, stuff a finger in, or whatever you happen to have handy, and squeeze. Failing that, you could try buying a gadget. Failing that, see a physio or continence nurse for biofeedback, which is an electrical device that measures the strength of your contraction in numbers. You can buy them, and you can buy an electrical stimulator which can zap the muscles into action - but, it'll set you back between £100 - £300 and so you may as well see the NHS first incase that's not what you need.

Cadmum - because they aren't researched for use in pregnancy, because trying to get ethics committee approval for anything to do with pregant women is tricky and costly. And, pregnant women are more likely to have thrush so there's a risk of getting a UTI. And, in pregnancy leakage can be a serious thing - so rather than thinking you're just needing to doyerblardyexercises and working away with a pelvic toner they'd rather you saw your GP to make sure you're not actually leaking amniotic fluid.

Captain - yep there are. Not many, and not very good (in my opinion. I have plans, I have awesome plans. But, no iphone, so I don't know what I'm talking about) tena lady's app bladder pal app where's the nearest loo app

Eurowitch - yep, persevere. If you are sure you can isolate teh feeling of the contraction and you practise, practise, practise then you'll strenghten the muscles. The lift thing IS hard, and if you can hold for 5 secs then aim for 6. If you can't manage - see your GP and ask for a referral.

Gok - yep, a bit of water getting in when you have your leg hanging over the side of the bath to shave that awkward bit is ok. But, water dribbling or flooding out of you five minutes after you get out, or leave the swimming pool is not. Especially if you also get peculiar noises emitting from your nethers during sex, or lots of fanny farts when you get out of a chair.

The advice on mid flow of urine stop has changed - they now say to check it once a week max as an assessment rather than as a training tool. There's evidence it can cause back flow of urine into the bladder in some cases - which can cause UTI's. So, by all means do it to see if you can, but then do yourblardyexercises and check if it's any easier to stop peeing after a week.

And, I agree, our level of knowlege of our pelvic floors is rubbish. Who mentioned FrancE? There you get given a voucher for post natal physio as routine. French women reek of glamour, not piss.

Coco - glad your experience was positive. Sounds like you had frequency, which is a problem with a slightly different part of continence. Usually the scenario goes like this: woman has weak pelvic floor and has a bit of an accident. She prevents that from happening again by going to the loo more frequntly. This stops her bladder from being put on full stretch, so it can no longer hold the same amount of urine. The more you go, the more you have to go. So, if you keep a diary of how much you drink and how much you wee you can set targets to increase the lenght of time you can hold on for. Works a treat, is easy peasy, just need to pee in a jug for three days to a week as a start off.

Glad you TVT was a success. Still gottadoyerblardyexercises though...

Lainey and Coco - breathing is generally considered to be a good thing during exercise. Just remember to breathe after each set. Fainting because of doingyerblardyexercises is embarrassing.

Keep practising. You'll get there. Might need botox for the pelvic floor lines on your forehead though...

Erm...I haven't been able to get away with breast stroke in the pool (front crawl is fine) since having DC1, who just turned 3... Just had DC2. Goodness knows what it'll be like now.
I feel like I am doing everything right - I can hold for 10s or more, I can do squeezes and I can do some semblance of the 3 floors thing. But it doesn't seem to get any better. I can't stop mid flow either unless it was only a little wee.
What else do I need to do?

love your name, smornintime

How often are you doing the exercises? It is possible to have weakness but not incontinence. If you can't stop midflow (weeny wees don't count) then you have some weakness.

I assume you don't have any other symtoms, that your continence is ok? ANd, how old is DC2?

So, do the exercises at LEAST 3x a day, every day, for a month. If there's still no change, then see your GP and ask for a referral.

At least three times a day. No slacking, really, really focus on the three exercises, three times a day. They are boring, they are diffiuclt to tell you are doing them right, but, the majority of people who do them will notice an improvement within a month. Youjustgottadotheblardyexercises.

You can try one of the gadgets available to help the strengthening - your GP can prescribe some of them for you. You still gotta use it though.

10, 10, 3.

Okay, so my question is why do my symptoms get worse when I do the exercises? I am just getting pranked by statistics?

IS it possible for something to be wrong whereby you can feel the tightening easily and do the 10 seconds easily and well everything but it is actually making it worse?

A friend had separated abs and hence excersising made her problems worse...is it possible to have a separated pelvic floor and over tighten?

Thanks gussie
DC2 is 3 months. Continence is ok (trampolines notwithstanding). I am trying to do the exercises whenever I remember, so feeding baby, brushing teeth, standing at the cooker, that sort of thing. I make a really concerted effort every night when I get into bed.
I have to confess I wasn't as vigilant between babies - when I was at work I didn't think about them so much.
Maybe I need an alarm or something to remind me as well! This thread is a good reminder too, we should always have one on the go :)

Here's a question: should these muscles ache if you work them? Like if you go running and your legs knack the day after?

ICBENEG - that's an interesting one. What are your symptoms that are worsening by doing the exercises? PM me if you prefer.

It is possible to make things worse by doing the exercises if you have an overly tight pelvic floor. Things like painful sex, difficulty using tampons, vaginismus - all to do with tension in the pf. It's just a muscle like any other - so it's possible to get tears and tension spots the same as you can in your neck.

You can't actually separate the pf though - a traumatic birth can cause a tear which would need stitching, but they wouldn't just separate like the two rectus muscles in your abdomen which can "unzip"

Your pelvic floor works very closely with your core muscles - that's why flappy fanny females often have low back pain too.

Smoringtime - you're still really early postnatal then. Keep at it, repetition is key. I agree, a klaxon going off across the nation every two hours to tell us all to doourblardyexercises would be a splendid solution. I shall email Jeremy Hunt right away, the poor wee lamb could do with a good idea just now.

And, yes, you can tire them out. There is a train of thought that you should keep going until the muscle fatigues - but, realistically, if you manage to do more than three sets a day I'd be really impressed! Relax and breathe between each set will help.

"Not tonight, darling, I've got delayed onset muscle soreness from doing my fanjo-fu?"

Thanks gussie. I don't think I need a referral. I've never had a sneeze/cough/trampolining incident. I can stop my wee, etc. In fact, until I heard about the other two exercises I would have said I have a pelvic floor of steel!* The muscles are very, very firm on the quick flicks. And, ahem, after dtd, the "products" stay put until I actually think about it and relax the muscles - there's no leakage. I will just keep trying with the other "new" exercises.

*I'm sure that will change if I ever manage to get pregnant!

fanjo-fu!

gussie okay so I can do the exercises no problem...I can feel the contractions, get the drop after 10 secs, do the flicks, do the lift up and down thing...but when I play racket sports I just leak like every time I go for a big shot. As soon as I am putting in max effort I wee.

Also with repetitive sneezing...not the first sneeze but when somethings totally up your nose and you get 5 or 6 in a row.

I hadn't really done a lot of blardyexercises till I started to get with the sports more seriously and discovered the problem. I then went in for some intensive fanjo-fu and things got way worse. I have packed it up and they are better again now. It is obviously totally possible that the two things are unrelated, or I had a random coincidental infection or something...

but yeah...if you can do all the exercises easily then does it imply the problem is elsewhere?

Oooh, I love that ICBINEG - I feel like the Miss Marple of Minge!

The sneezing and big shot raquet sport ishoo is because of the sudden, sharp and significant rise of your intra-abdominal pressure those activities cause. If that pressure exceeds the force your pelvic floor can generate to keep the support on the neck of your bladder, you leak. So, you are right, you've got decent strength in your pelvic floor - but it isn't strong enough to sustain repeated pressure from half a dozen sneezes or a Venus style grunt and lunge.

Continence problems amongst atheletes are surprisingly common. My background's in sports physio, and it's eyebrow raising. All to do with repeated stresses, if you are a gymnast with lots of intra-abdominal pressure, or a runner with lots of repeated thumping - then, in time, it gives.

Doing the exercises shouldn't make it worse. Doing too many, without resting in between or whilst holding your breath can give you pain, but not worse continence.

I wonder whether it could have been linked to your menstrual cycle? The rise and fall of hormones, well, oestrogen, has an effect on our tissues. It's really common for women to be fairly ok for three weeks of the month, and plagued by pee for one.

And, yep, an infection will worsen things. As will pregnancy, being constipated, doing some yoga and pilates moves, bungee jumping, hayfever, smoking, the flu, running, shouting, blowing up balloons, lifting heavy things, vomiting, and cystitis.

So, I think your problem is likely to be that your muscles are strong enough for ordinary, daily activities - but they aren't quite strong enough for the extra challenges your sport presents.

You could try a bit of resistance work - the pelvic toner would do that. As would a ben wa ball - might be tricky to make your shot though if you are distracted by "jiggling"...

thanks for the feedback!

It is interesting you mention grunting...I have noticed a marked increase in escapes in that direction as well as the other....

I wonder if what has really happened here is that baby wrangling has somehow massively increased my abdominal tone (well it was zero before so a big increase isn't particularly unlikely) and now both my lungs and bladder are in a substantially more competitive environment....

also a good point about cystitis. I had kinda assumed the cystitis was being caused by the endless leakage and now it seems obvious it could be the other way around.

Okay I will have another burst on the old exercises and see if I can eliminate the bottom leakage....although maybe that will make the grunting even worse

Bump!?
I'm still trying over here - how is everyone else doing?

Hi smornitime!

I'm a bit reluctant to bump for fear of seeming obsessive.

Which, I am. Compeletly. Am busy rounding up prizes for a fundraiser I'm doing in November for Leukaemia Research - it's actually a thinly veiled attmept at market research to see whether it's worth pouring some money into gusset grippers...anyhoo, am delightedly putting together a hamper for a silent auction - "a box for yer box" I've got a shewee, a mooncup, a pelvic toner, an incostress, a remarkable pair of knickers with a wee silicone nobble in the gusset which can't be awfully comfy but apparently is quite naice, and am away to Ann Summers to beg some goodies from there. A box for your box. It amuses me.

10, 10, 3.

It amuses me tbh... I've got a bit of a dirty mind, and I can't help thinking it's a great 'respectable excuse' for a vibrator

Well, flow...

...you know these vibration plate thingies in gyms? THere's some evidence they enhance strengthening. And, there's some new papers published showing the enhanced strenghtening effect was present in elderly people who did their balance exercises on a vibrating plate...

...so, if there's tenuous evidence suggesting that vibration plates strengthen all muscles in all age groups...is it such a leap to assume that a bit of vibration would help the pelvic floor?

Wouldn't much fancy getting a proposal for an MSc through the ethics committee on that...but, frankly, if it improves compliance with doingtheblardyexercises and gets women laughing and talking about their pelivc floors and mibbe motivates them to get on with doing something about their leakage - who cares how we do that?

Yes indeedy!
Laughter itself is apparently very good for the pelvic floor

I have not seen this advert yet. Where is it?

It pops up on the right hand side every now and then. Pops up rather a lot on mine, but then, I do go on and on about it on MN...

www.pelvictoner.co.uk (not an employee or anything. I do think the pelvic toner will help lots of women - they've got some great research backing them up. But, you've got to remember that just buying a gadget won't fix your problem. You've got to actually use it, and do yerblardyexercises. It's a muscle trainer, not a magic wand)

which is a shame