Urinary Incontinence Archives ⋆ The Green Vagina

Urinary Incontinence

December 9, 2018December 9, 2018

What is Urinary Incontinence?

One of the rudest and most inappropriate things ever said to me came from a nurse! When leaving the delivery room, moments after I had my son, she said “wait until you see how you pee yourself after delivering a 9lb baby.” I thought, what a horrible thing to say!

Her words have stuck with me and I think about it often. How ignorant! The fact is, urinary incontinence impacts many women every day. There is a social stigma attached, talking about the topic is taboo and as a society we seem to brush it aside. What is urinary incontinence? What are the risk factors and treatments available? Here’s an overview.

K-Fit Kegel Toner Review – First Impressions Using the Device

September 26, 2018September 26, 2018

K-Fit Kegel Toner Review – First Impressions Sending Electrical Impulses Through My Vagina

The pelvic floor has to be the most neglected muscle system in the human body. Without my personal knowledge through my occupation as an Occupational Therapist, the only time anyone mentioned anything related to my pelvic floor was a vague mention by my Mom about “doing kegels at stop signs” and my OB mentioning that I have a “mild cystocele” after the birth of my 4th baby. She also mentioned that we’d “deal with it” when I was in my 40’s and it really started to cause trouble. No therapy, no recommendations for home exercise…

Why isn’t the pelvic floor more of a focus? Talking about anything below the belt and above the knees is still considered taboo. With an estimated 30-50% of people with a uterus over 30 experiencing some level of urinary incontinence…you think it would be on billboards, the sides of coffee cups and focused on a lot.

I hope things change. I also hope that I’m doing my part! I started testing out the K-Fit Kegel Toner and wanted to share my first impressions with you. What’s a Kegel Toner? It’s one of many devices available to help tone and strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. Except, unlike my low-tech kegel weights, this uses electric stimulation to exercise the pelvic floor with zero effort on my part.

Here’s more about how it works and how sending electrical impulses through my vagina is going:

Pelvic Floor Exercises

April 8, 2018November 12, 2018

The first time I heard about pelvic floor exercises was from my Mom. As a young woman she instructed me in the kegel exercises her OB told her about. She explained that you should squeeze muscles while you were peeing to start and stop the flow of urine several times a day while peeing.

Mom was partially right. The muscle that stops and starts the flow of urine is involved in pelvic floor control however, it misses the much larger picture. Pelvic floor muscles are an intricate balance of muscles, organs, strength and timing.

Here are 3 pelvic floor exercises I do before bed, even when I’m too tired to do much else.

Pelvic Floor Muscles

August 30, 2017November 12, 2018

Pelvic Floor Muscles

To address kegel exercises I must first talk about your pelvic floor muscles. If Kegel exercises are designed to address a weakness in the pelvic floor, you are probably wondering what your pelvic floor is.

Your pelvic floor is very important because it supports your intestines, bladder, uterus, organs and maintains urinary and anal continence via sphincters. (1) Weakness can cause all sorts of issues including peeing yourself a little bit to a whole lot and pelvic organ prolapse: When your organs drop into your vaginal canal at varying degrees. They even impact orgasm quality and control of your rectum.

So what are your pelvic floor muscles? Here they are!