The pelvic floor is a muscular wall that separates the upper and lower halves of your body. Muscles of the pelvic floor help in supporting the pelvic and abdominal cavities. The pelvic floor also helps in controlling important processes, including bowel and bladder movement.
In women, pelvic floor muscles also support the uterus and is involved in sexual activity as well as childbirth.
However, these muscles can become weak over time. In women, pregnancy and childbirth are chief culprits in making the pelvic floor weak.
These muscles, instead of becoming relaxing when needed, tighten, due to which several problems occur around the body, that then need to be addressed by your urologist then.
Problems that occur on account of a weak pelvic floor, or pelvic floor dysfunction include:
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Incomplete Defecation Or Other Bowel Issues
Problems like constipation, incomplete defecation, bowel mobility issues are also common during pelvic floor dysfunction. Since the muscles are not able to contract and relax properly, therefore, fecal matter is not able to exit the rectum effectively.
Pelvic Or Back Pain After Sex
Since pelvic floor muscles are involved in sexual intercourse, naturally, issues therein also have an impact on sexual activity as well. A symptom of a weak pelvic floor is when you experience pain during intercourse, especially after orgasm, as the muscles become tighter.
Stress Urinary Incontinence
SUI refers to loss of urine when stress is exerted on the bladder, by activities such as laughing, sneezing, jumping, etc. These most often affect women who have sustained damage to their pelvic floor during childbirth.
Urinary Urgency Or Increased Frequency
Overactive bladder is when you are making more visits to the loo, especially with urgency, as you are unable to hold the urine in. People who visit the loo greater than 8 times or pee after every 2 hours might be suffering from overactive bladder (OAB).
As pelvic floor muscles help in keeping the bladder from becoming too reactive, therefore, a weak pelvic floor then naturally does not prevent OAB.
Uterine Or Vaginal Prolapse
As the pelvic floor muscles help in keeping the organs in place, any damage to these muscles then also causes the organs to move out of place, which is the case in the uterus or vaginal prolapse in women.
Generally, as a result of childbirth or old age, the muscles cannot hold the organs in place, which then prolapse as a result. Symptoms include a bulge in the vagina and heaviness in the pelvic region.
Keeping Pelvic Floor Strong With Kegels
Suffering from a weak pelvic floor is not just a matter of pain, but it also leads to great discomfort as well. People may also feel overwhelmed, especially since they might feel ashamed of discussing these issues with others.
These can also cause great problems with mobility; not realizing when you might need to pee, and not being able to hold it back is very inconvenient.
The good news is, there is a simple solution to a weak pelvic floor. Much like you use exercise to make muscles of the rest of the body strong, pelvic floor muscles can also be improved by certain exercises.
One such exercise is Kegels. Very easy to perform, Kegels involve squeezing and relaxing the muscles of the pelvic floor. The slightly more challenging task is locating these muscles. An easy trick to do is holding your pee in midstream; the muscles that clench in response are the pelvic floor muscles.
After locating help, simply perform the exercise; squeeze the muscles, hold for a second, and relax for 2 seconds. This is one rep, and you should aim to get at least 5 reps in. To increase the challenge when your body gets used to this, increase the frequency of the exercise. Then, increase the time that you squeeze and relax the muscles.
It’s important that you also consult the Best urologist in Lahore when accosted with pelvic dysfunction.