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A weak pelvic floor is when the muscles in your pelvic floor are unable to contract enough to hold up your pelvic organs or control your bladder and bowels the way you would want to. An overactive pelvic floor is when your muscles are so tight, they are unable to relax and contract normally and cannot contract further when you are trying to hold in your urine. Picture a spring that is tightly coiled; there is no more space for it to compress no matter how hard you try. This is how a hypertonic pelvic floor leads to incontinence. For a muscle to be functional, it must be able to both contract and relax, just like any other muscle in your body.
What Am I Looking For?
Signs that you may have an overactive pelvic floor include: pelvic pain, painful sex, urinary incontinence, urinary frequency, incomplete emptying of your bladder, hesitancy or delayed start of stream, constipation or straining.
How Does This Happen?
There’s not one cause, several activities can lead to a tight pelvic floor. It could be due to excessive exercise, holding in your stomach, holding your bladder when you’re out, high stress levels that cause overall tension, IBS, vulvodynia and endometriosis among others.
Will Kegals Help?
Kegals work to strengthen the pelvic floor. In this case the pelvic floor is already so tense that it will not help and may even worsen the pelvic dysfunction that you are experiencing.
If you think you might have might have an issue with your pelvic floor, book an appointment with me to find out.
