The short answer? NO!
The longer version of this answer, definitely no, it is not okay! I have been speaking with lots of women recently and what keeps coming up is that instead of working on strategies to strengthen the weakness or improving the situation, women have removed themselves from the situation, in this case an exercise class, normally a high impact class to stop it happening. This is a bit like burying your head in the sand.
I am not having a go or being negative to anyone or rubbishing anyone’s decision. This post I hope will make more of you sit up and think about approaching your body and more specifically your pelvic floor differently.
You only have one pelvic floor, it can cause a lot of embarrassment, discomfort and reluctance to take part in the same activities that you previously did through fear. Let’s try to change that, it is possible, not definitive but certainly possible.
Let’s put it another way; if you hurt your ankle, or a muscle in your arm/ thigh/ calf failed, what would you do?
You would go see the doctor or a physio.
We, as women, need to realise that we owe it to ourselves not to dismiss this any longer. Leakage, is NOT normal and we shouldn’t accept it as ‘just one of those things that happens’. Of a slightly lesser impact is the need to go to the toilet whenever you jump around or exert yourself or cough/ sneeze/ laugh suddenly.
60 – 80% of women with SUI (Stress Urinary Incontinence – this is what we are talking about in the first paragraph) can be improved with correct pelvic floor training and correct recruitment (Neuman et al, 2005). This gives a lot of us hope and is very positive. The next thing to mention is to really work out what is happening with your pelvic floor and if you believe you have issues, get yourself referred to a Women’s Health Physio or a Pelvic Floor Specialist physio, they are fantastic and can give you an internal assessment to see what your recruitment patterns are like and give the best recommendations.
There are a number of strategies that can help with the pelvic floor, these include correct lifting strategies/ improving toilet habits/ nutritional strategies/ movement to name a few. Even improving our breathing can help!
Let me finish todays blog on this note: you may not consider yourself to have anything described above or any pelvic floor dysfunction BUT it is never too early to begin looking after your pelvic floor. There are many risk factors that lead to pelvic floor dysfunction, I will cover some of these in my next blog.
Disclaimer: All of the above is dependent on your symptoms and the severity of these. Do not undertake anything new if you are concerned before speaking with a qualified individual.