There's so much more to pelvic floor physiotherapy!
In Part I of this article, we spoke about other factors that may need to be looked at if kegels are not working. In this post, we talk about why kegels might not be the best thing to include in your treatment care at all!
If you are experiencing the following symptoms, kegels might not be the answer:
urinary urgency and frequency
bowel urgency and frequency
pelvic pain
chronic constipation
painful sex
pubic or tailbone pain
Why? If the pelvic floor muscles are tight, overactive, or hypertonic, the increased "tightness" may be leading to the symptoms you are experiencing. Doing kegels in this instance may not help to resolve the issues, although it might not worsen it either (in some cases, it can). In clinic, we notice that most of the time if someone has an overactive pelvic floor, the best course of treatment may be to focus on relaxation of these muscles and THEN work on strengthening after.
The goal is build better control and coordination so they are working optimally and know when to contract and tighten and when to relax. It can be hard to determine if you are following the right course of treatment, but if your symptoms are not resolving over a few weeks of doing kegels, then we need to do something else. Please read part I of this article so you can see that pelvic floor issues should be assessed with a variety of other things in mind and while kegels are great we also need to look at other body parts. Or, sometimes, we are taking a step back from doing kegels.
Your pelvic floor physiotherapist can help determine this based on your medical history, symptoms, and assessment and guide you towards doing the most effective treatment.
Questions? Please comment below, e-mail us at hello@kaaiaa.co, or book a free phone consult.
