Pelvic floor knackered, told not to exercise HELP!!

[Clarabumps]

Yesterday I was at the women's physiotherapy department for my pelvic floor issues. I've been told to stop all the exercise I've been doing and I feel so upset.

I've stopped running on the advice of my physio as it was too stressful for myPF. I was really gutted as I love running. I stopped all prolonged high impact exercises but I started doing Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30.
It's a combination of squats, small jumps, lunges, crunches and compound movements with weights.

Around starting this exercise regime, something 'went wrong' with my pelvic floor and the physio says I have the start of a prolapse. She has advised me to step up my pelvic floor exercises but has warned me off any exercises with weights or anything I had been doing previously.

I am in the process of losing weight and I really saw a big difference when i added exercise into my weight loss programme. I feel like this is a massive set back. I know it sounds silly but I ended up in tears at the thought of not being able to exercise properly until I strengthen these muscles.

Has anyone been in this situation? I've been told I can swim but that seems to be the extent of it. Can anyone give any advice as to alternative activities that worked for them. I feel like I'm like an old woman and I'm only 33.

Sorry if I sound dramatic.

TIA

Well done Clara! 30 lengths on day1 is very impressive. Look up YouTube & note down some new moves for the next session...will keep you going. ??????

Oooh!! I will. Homework challenge accepted. My back is now killing me. In a good way. Just down my shoulder blades to my waist. I dunno what I was thinking that it was light exercise. I was out of breath and my muscles feel like they've really had a workout.

Does lifting a pram up stairs do damage to your PF? I lived in an upper flat after having my kids and have bumped the pram up and down stairs six times a day for the past 5 years. I moved a year ago but that has definitely contributed.

Onsera- I totally agree, there should be more information after having a baby about the weakness there. I've had three children and no one has ever mentioned it until I brought it up with my GP.

I wish my midwife had not bothered wasting an hour of my life with the ante natal class 'Talk to your Bump' and instead told us all about pelvic floor damage. Out of 6 of my friends who have babies, only 1 is completely fine. 1!!!!!! For goodness sake.
So - do these things improve a bit after I finish breastfeeding? My poor pelvic floor. Two pregnancies and 12 months of chronic coughing and a lot of breastfeeding over the last 3 years.
just off for a quick google of swimming costumes!

gussie I came across your blog and other posts at the beginning of January, after realising I was the only mum wetting myself when using a skipping rope in excersise class. I've read all your brilliant words, seen the gp and now have an appt lined up to see the right people at Hospital. Thanks for giving me the Understanding and the cojones to go get it sorted

Onsera - yep, I'm apoleptic about it too. It IS improving, there was a really good collaboration between the physios and midwives last year good article with linkies - but, the sad fact is that most women don't get the information at all.

It is changing - I'm involved with a Cochrane Review project about menopause, that looks like it'll be a big media campaign. Fingers crossed.

The truth is though, that as long as these things are seen as being embarrassing, well, we are silencing ourselves.

I agree, I'd completely overhaul the way we're taught about our bodies - though health and wellbeing at school, antenatal classes, pre-school registration (would be easy to send a self-assessment for the mum along with the kid's forms) - and, then we need info about menopause and all that jazz.

I keep murmuring, wouldn't it be amazing to get a MN campaign going? I think the stats are flawed, although they say 1:3 women the figures are taken from clinic - and we know that about 70% of women never go near a clinic. I started surveying my audiences (I wrote a comedy show, Gusset Grippers, about pelvic floors) and 75% of them reported symtoms - a quarter of those didn't consider themselves to be incontinent though, which raises all sorts of questions about perceptions.

So, if we surveyed MN users we'd get a good snapshot of incidence amongst a (reasonably) broad range. More broad than clinic figures, anyway.

And, yep, pram bumping's a tough one. Empty pram bumping is usually fine, but, loaded with a toddler and shopping bags with half a dozen bottles of wine is a LOT of weight. If you lift heavy weights you increase your intra-abdominal pressure, which bulges downwards. Doing "the knack" first will help Michelle Kenway's got a good video

Curls Bloody good for you. Skipping in a puddle is no fun at all, you'll be grand in no time. Chuffed to bits that you're following it up. Good luck!

After my prolapse surgery the sum total of physio input was a 30 second visit to my hospital bed to ask if I knew how to do pelvic floor exercises. "Yes," says I.
"It's important you do them, " says she.
End of conversation.
Years later having seen a lovely women's health physio, I realised my idea of effective PFE, and how it should be done properly , were 2 different things. She reckoned we should be educating teenagers when they hit puberty and ideally should be included in the sex education program.
I also think it that surgery success is overestimated for prolapse. Follow up in most studies is only a year or two. No-one discusses what happens 10-12 years on when you are premenopausal.

Hello, remember me? Well it's a month later and i've been swimming 4 times a week. I'm now swimming a mile in 64 minutes. I'm so much happier.
My pelvic floor has got a teeny bit stronger, I can now sneeze with a bit more confidence and I've lost 4 lbs. My stomach is flatter and my arms and legs are a lot more defined. Overall i just feel healthier and a lot more chilled out. I LOVE SWIMMING! I have totally found my sport. It's addictive. I have also taken my kids swimming and signed my ds2 up for additional needs swimming lessons. Something I never would have done before due to my hatred of swimming.
I'm pretty much in the pool 6 times a week now and I'm loving it.
SO it's just to say a big Thank You to you all for all your encouragement. I am so amazed that I've improved so much in a month. I have you all to thank for that. I'm so glad I posted. It's totally changed my life.

I have also started talking about this experience with my friends. I'm sick of the shame factor when this is something that affects so many women out there, two of my friends are now referred to physio for their pelvic floor issues and I'm a lot more aware of what I need to do to protect my pelvic floor.
So thanks again!!

Hi Clara, thats great, well done, swimming is bliss I agree.

Long may you continue swimming and progressing:)

Well done Clara! Really pleased for you both on the swimming front and finding the confidence to talk about it!

Delighted to hear that you are doing well with the swimming.
Interestingly, the Yoga exercises that will most help you are the antenatal ones
and pranayama - breath control - as it involves control of all of teh abdominal area
but DO DO DO attend
a class as a teacher can correct you but a video cannot

I'll give that a whirl Talkin. I've just been really extravagant and bought a spa membership. It has a yoga class on once a week so I might pop along to that as it's part of my membership anyway.

Clara My PF was pretty weak, I didn't have any actual medical issues (just having 3 babies) and kettlebells worked for me.
Not only did it sort out the occasional leaking but it tightened everything up - I mean everything :)
The kettlebell doesn't need to be heavy as it's the action that you do with your body while swinging it. You kind of thrust and squeeze to get the KB to travel. All that squeezing really works.

Hello, I'm dragging out this zombie thread just to thank some of the people who posted on this thread.

I updated in march when I had swam 64 lengths for the first time. Basically all your advice and swimming has changed my life. Since March Ive went for swimming lessons. I can now swim breast stroke with ease with my face in the water. I swim 6 miles a week. I also go to a yoga class twice a week and practice three days a week. I've lost 2 stones since March without really trying and I'm now hoping to train to be a yoga instructor in a year or two.
The act of stripping all my exercise back to the bare bones has made me focus on what I really enjoy. This has had a knock on effect in every aspect of my life. For the first time in my life I realise that exercise is actually fun and it needn't be a punishment for 'eating too much'.

So thank you folks. I'd encourage anyone to go for swimming lessons. It's hard at first but so so SO worthwhile (my front crawl is still a bit dodgy but it's getting there).

Big huge bunch of these for you all.

I bloody love Mumsnet sometimes.

Greater news!
Thanks for updating

Great update!
It's well worth having swimming lessons. I learnt at 16 as I'd never got the hang of it at school. Once you've got the technique, it tends to stay. I rarely get chance for a proper swim, but because I'm fit, I can.randomly swim a mile when I get a chance.

My pelvic floor isn't great, but has improved over this year. It seems to have taken my body just over two years to forgive me for an SPD ridden pregnancy and rough forceps birth (which was 2 years after Ds1 wrecked his havoc on my body). I've just had leakage issues when running / skipping / trampolining, and forgetting a pant liner is less critical than it once was.

Advice post-birth is rubbish. I was given several different messages after my 3rd degree tear about when to do pelvic floors, and how much recovery I needed first. Being embarrassed about it won't help anyone though!

I know this is a SUPPPEERRRR old thread but I’m keen to know what happened to your pelvic floors?? I’ve got a mild prolapse (still waiting to hear how mild but it’s not bothering me and I only feel it once in a while, maybe twice a week) but it’s really scaring me to think I can’t squat, run or lift weights.

Mine's fine. I do now run, do squats and lift weights but all with care, nothing too heavy and I also do yoga with a women's health specialist teacher who has taught me so much. I wouldn't feel safe doing any of the other things if I hadn't done the yoga classes for a few years TBH. A women's health physio would be a good place to start for you - have you got a referral?

@WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes nearly there - I have a gynaecologist appointment in the next week or so and then need them to refer me. Im so glad for this community - I’m only 33 and prolapsed during the first trimester of my second pregnanc when everything goes weak… the pregnancy turned into a miscarriage :(. I’m now reading that it’s harder to conceive with a prolapse, I really hope this isn’t the case - I can’t deal with a miscarriage, prolapse and not being able to carry a child again, all within a few months. 😥