Which therapy is the best for you?

The only way to make weak muscles stronger is to exercise them. The conventional way is to carry out unaided pelvic floor exercises, otherwise known as Kegel Exercises. 

These exercises were devised nearly 70 years ago.  They’re completely free and they’re widely taught to post-natal women.  If they were an effective solution to the problem, millions of women wouldn’t still be putting up with those symptoms.

The success rates of Kegel Exercises are very low because they’re complicated to do, and are easy to get wrong.  So, improvement in symptoms is slow or non-existent for most women.  As a result the majority abandon them, and it’s been clear for years that there’s a need for a more effective solution.

These administer a series of electrical impulses which cause your muscles to twitch and contract. They consist of a small control unit and electrodes which you either stick onto your skin, or come in the shape of an intra-vaginal or intra-anal probe which gives you the electrical impulse internally.

These types of products are most appropriate for women whose pelvic floor muscles have become so weak that they’re hardly aware of them. If you’re one of them, you can probably manage only the weakest Kegel-type contraction on your own.

Using electrical stimulators helps you to gain awareness of your pelvic floor muscles. However, if they’re used incorrectly used you may be stimulating the wrong muscles without knowing.

Electrical stimulators can improve muscle awareness, but because your muscles aren’t doing any active work, they’re of limited benefit.

Once you can manage to make voluntary contractions, you should move on to performing an active muscle workout.  This will develop optimum tone in your pelvic floor muscles, and that’s the only way you’re really going to get rid of all your symptoms.

These devices are passive intra-vaginal Kegel exercise monitors.  The user has to carry out Kegel-type contractions, and the device sends information about the contractions to a smartphone app.  A graphic display on your phone screen lets you visualise your contractions, and the manufacturers claim that this visual feedback “educates” women to to perform Kegel pelvic floor exercises correctly.

These products are often advertised by the manufacturers as Kegel or Pelvic Floor Exercisers. However, they don’t assist you to carry out the Kegel-type contractions in any way.  In other words, they only measure your contractions while you do all of the hard work yourself (and it is pretty hard!).  Also, contracting your abdominal, buttock or thigh muscles at the same time is very easily done, but it can be completely counterproductive.  These products don’t stop you from doing that.

None of these devices has yet appeared in any published clinical trials which show that they are equal or superior to other methods of treating pelvic floor weakness.  Subjective user comments and popular magazine articles are often quoted by the makers, but independent clinical confirmation of their effectiveness is still unavailable.

Vaginal cones consist of a set of small weighted cones which are placed in the vagina for a few minutes each day while you’re on your feet.  Because the vagina is more or less vertical when you’re standing, the shape and weight of the cone makes it tend to slip downwards.  This sensation causes a natural reflex contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, which holds the cone in place and stops it from dropping out.

You need to use the cone for 15-20 minutes twice a day, and the automatic work your muscles do during that time tones them up without you making any conscious effort.  There are several cones the same size but of different weights, and your progress through the series strengthens and tones your pelvic floor muscles gradually and very efficiently.  You can read more about this therapy here.

Clinical trials carried out by internationally renowned gynaecologists at University hospitals in London and around the world showed that this therapy resolved the symptoms of 70-90% of women.

SAFETY:  As a result of the worldwide success of this therapy, cheap copies of uncertain origin advertise themselves as pelvic floor or Kegel weights.  They are usually highly coloured, often coated in silicone, and can be a variety of shapes and sizes, and may also be spherical.

You should avoid such products and ensure that the brand you buy carries the CE Mark or is FDA approved.  Click here for more details on how to ensure you’re using a safe, licensed product.