Health, Bladder Dysfunction, Women's Health
Becky Aston, a Specialist Women’s Health Physiotherapist, and Lucy Teear from Life Begins At, talk to Tracey McAlpine about the taboo around urinary incontinence, pelvic floors and what help is out there that works.
Over 9 million women suffer from incontinence and many suffer in silence due to shame or simply just think it’s something they have to put up with.
Stress Urinary Incontinence happens after childbirth or peri/post menopause and is when you leak urine when you laugh, sneeze, jump, run or cough. This is caused by a weakening of the muscles in the pelvic floor that surround the bladder.
Around 75% of Urinary Incontinence can be cured completely with targeted exercise and subtle changes of habits. The first step is to get help.
When women are taught how to do pelvic floor exercises verbally, 50% won’t contract them correctly. These are not easy exercises to do and probably shouldn’t be done whilst driving a car! Time should be spent to locate the muscles, making sure you are doing the right exercise. The best way to do this is to see a women’s health Physiotherapist, who will examine your pelvic floor muscles to make sure you are doing the right thing and give you an individual exercise programme to achieve continence.
Don’t suffer in silence and presume pelvic floor problems are part of being a woman. Whether post baby or peri-menopause, women’s bodies go through different physical challenges at different times of life and occasionally need help to recover. 1 in 4 women will develop a problem with their bladder or bowel as well as other pelvic floor conditions such as a pelvic organ prolapse.
Becky Aston says, “it is a misconception that these conditions only occur to women later on in life, they occur at all ages. All these conditions are treatable and help should be sought early.”
Lucy Teear is 47, married and lives in South Wales. Like many women, she’d never really given her Kegels or her pelvic floor a second thought. After having a baby it was on her radar but with everything else happening she pushed it to the back of her mind. At 42 Lucy was sadly diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, grade three and her life changed beyond belief.
After enduring a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Lucy gradually recovered but the treatment triggered an early menopause and she began to notice that when she needed to go to the toilet there was a real sense of urgency. It became progressively more difficult to hold that urge for any length of time. Lucy’s work involved quite a bit of road travel resulting in having to stop quite a few times, meaning she was having to think about the toilet breaks en route, something she’d previously never given a thought about.
A few occasions resulted in a near accident and leakage; this led her to seek help. She had heard about pelvic floor trainers from a colleague and after researching she decided on PeriCoach as the one to try. Four weeks into using this pelvic floor personal training device Lucy began to notice a difference. She could actually ‘feel where her pelvic floor was’, before using the device she didn’t know where it was let alone if she was doing the exercises correctly. PeriCoach was easy to use and simple to follow, plus it sent her daily reminders which helped Lucy keep on track.
Lucy found it really convenient to use whilst staying away from home and travelling, having the app on her phone made it fun, but importantly for her was also very discreet. Now Lucy uses her PeriCoach a couple of times a week just to keep her muscles in shape, she can actually feel them working. It’s transformed her life, no more leakage, no more urgent down a ditch pit stops needed and she’s finally found her Kegels.
PeriCoach is an easy, at home, discreet and effective pelvic floor muscle trainer device that consist of three biosensors which when you insert and squeeze against, gives feedback on your progress via an app on your smartphone (Android or iOS). It is medically approved and has been designed to specifically assist with the correction of urinary incontinence.
PeriCoach is currently the only device in the UK that has a healthcare professional portal. This means that your physio or clinician can access and track your progress as well as setting you tasks to do.
PeriCoach helps restores confidence in your pelvic floor as it allows you to track and monitor your progress and it even sends daily reminders to keep you motivated.
PeriCoach can be ordered directly from PeriCoach and costs £145.00 plus postage and packing.
Becky Aston Physiotherapy Life Begins At
Related articles and videos:
PeriCoach the effective new way to treat Urinary Incontinence
Bladder Weakness – Dr Hilary Jones answers your questions
Champion Dancer Tackles Incontinence Taboo
Incontinence – what are the choices?
This video was sponsored by PeriCoach
