Incontinence and the tip that changed the game

No one likes to talk about a leaking bladder. But for girls, it’s something we often deal with behind closed doors, and it’s likely for that reason that I missed out on hearing a little gem of gold that has since for me, made all the difference.

Look, lots of people have to deal with incontinence. Pretty much anyone who has worked the muscles hard in the pelvic area is a candidate – we often think first of women, and usually ones who have carried babies, but that’s not the whole story. Elite athletes are just as susceptible and men don’t escape it either. If you lift any sort of weights for work, sport or even in leisure (gardening comes to mind!) you can experience incontinence.

As a menopausal gal in my mid fifties, I’m also a candidate, as muscle tone can be gradually lost as we age. But that’s not to say I have to put up with it! That’s where strengthening the pelvic floor muscles comes in.

I recently attended a pelvic floor workshop at my local Curves gym in Camden, NSW.  (Big shout out to owner Stacey Johnstone for thinking outside the square and looking for ways to source helpful info for her girls). The workshop was led by Lisa Maunsell of The Continence Foundation and the main speaker was local physiotherapist Allison McMenemy from Harrington Park Physiotherapy. Allison shared about the biology of the pelvic floor, and how it acts like a supportive hammock underneath our all important bladder, bowel, and if you're female, the uterus. If the support is strong, then those organs behave but if not, we can end up with leakage when we cough, laugh or exert ourselves.

Most women are familiar with the term ‘pelvic floor exercises’ and there is a whole raft of information out there about how to do them, such the information on The Continence Foundation's Website which even includes a short two minute video clip.

A common problem is simply remembering to do the exercises in our busy lives. Can we find three minutes a day? It was suggested that perhaps when we go to bed is a good time, spending the first three minutes after we lie down and all the pressure of gravity is alleviated, to exercise these muscles.  If you have trouble fitting it in too, check out this fun article from Mamamia. All good stuff, and just having a prompt to remind me to do it is a bonus.

But the best tip that took the workshop from informative to transformative was this one for those times when you really need to go to the toilet, and are worried that you may not make it. Sometimes the worst is when you’re in the bathroom already – I don’t know about you, but I reckon my brain has a little internal dialogue along the lines of “Yep, we’re here, relax” to the soundtrack of “Let it go, let it go” from Frozen and it’s nigh impossible to stop the inevitable. Add a lot of clothing layers if we’re talking about winter, and I’m surprised (more often than not) that I make it at all!  

So what did I hear that has changed the game?

Heel raises.

Did you know that you can do heel raises – where you alternate between standing flat on your feet and raising up onto tippy toes – and this will reduce the urgency to go?

What the?

Is it just mind over matter? How does this work?

No, it isn’t just mind over matter. For that you need distraction techniques - a common one is counting backwards from 100 in sevens.  They can help.

But no, heel raising is no mere distraction. There are actually anatomical reasons why it works, and I'll do my best to explain. 

We all have something called a tibial nerve. This nerve runs down the back of each of our calf muscles, which at first seems completely unrelated to your bladder, full or not! But this nerve sends messages to the same area in the sacrum that controls the bladder. (The sacrum is a super strong triangular bone in the lower back that connects to the hip bones and is key in supporting the weight of the upper body and in forming a strong pelvis). So, if you contract your calf – either by doing heel raises or even curling your toes, that tibial nerve jumps into action, dialogues with the sacrum and as a result, it can help you hold on.

And it works! Oh yeh!

I’m not afraid or embarrassed to share that this little tip has given me back some freedom. But I'm not just relying on this alone and neglecting the strengthening of my pelvic floor. That would be crazy. No, what this has given me is a strategy to help me with the day to day while I’m being more engaged in strengthening those muscles that definitely need it.

I hope I've shared a little something that blesses you today as it blessed me.

And what better song to go with this post than the one I've already mentioned ... Let it Go, from Frozen.

Tracey 👌

With thanks to Disney UK YouTube Channel for Frozen
and Allison McMenemy's reference to An Over-Active Bladder? Curl up those toes!! 

PS If you struggle with finding public toilets when you're out and about, our government has thought about you. There is a National Public Toilet Map! God love 'em. 😏