I had the following email about kegel exercises and bladder control. He had some good questions so I am posting this here in hopes the answers help some more of you .
Men and Women Benefit from Kegel Exercises
Dear Jennifer:
Before I enroll in your therapy program I would like the following info. Is your therapy program for women only? How effective is it for men ? I am familiar with KEGEL exercises. It helps only while one is doing the exercise but it needs to be done subconsciously & continuously.
As a man, who had complete removal of the prostate gland, use of medicines like VESICARE is problematic. What is the best and sure way of solving incontinence without medicines and half baked programs ?
What is the success rate of your bladder control program? Strengthening of the pelvic muscle by KEGEL exercise is not 100% possible. There must be a control by hypnosis or psychological suggestion. Your comments will be highly appreciated
Thanks for your help – M.S.
Thanks for writing,
To answer your questions I actually need some more info from you. First of all, the program is for both men and women. It has great success for persons of both genders. We did some surveying of previous participants several years ago and had an 81% SUCCESS RATE – however, that was for people who actually worked with me one-on-one using biofeedback in the MDs office in northern California. I am getting lots of emails thanking me from people who are doing just the online program but I haven’t done a survey of all the people who have used it.
” I am familiar with KEGEL exercises. It helps only while one is doing the exercise but it needs to be done subconsciously & continuously.”
Actually, what happens is that if you get the pelvic muscles strong enough, which a good kegel exercise program will do, that strength builds up and maintains continence without you needing to do them constantly throughout the day. However, you do have to continue doing the exercises to maintain the strength you have gained or just like any other muscle, without proper exercise the “kegel muscles” will weaken again.
However, if you have components of overactive bladder symptoms then there’s much more retraining necessary than just kegel exercises.
I am not a physician and so I do not prescribe medications. I am not against them except that you have to take them forever and a lot of bladder problems can be cured behaviorally. I am a biofeedback/behavioral therapist and so my leanings are to help people get over their problems so they don’t keep on putting out money month after month.
” What is the best and sure way of solving incontinence without medicines and half baked programs ?” You have to strengthen the pelvic floor and if their are symptoms of urinary urgency then your behaviors and thoughts need to be changed but not by hypnosis. It’s done through basic behavioral/cognitive retraining.
So the questions I need you to answer:
1. How did you learn the correct way to do kegels?
2. How often do you doa good 5-10 minutes of kegels at one exercise session in a week kegels?
3. How many kegel contractions do you do at one sitting?
4. How long do you sustain each contraction?\
5. Do you do both quick flick kegels and kegels that you sustain for several seconds?
6. When do you lose urine? Standing up from a chair. coughing, laughing, on the way to the bathroom, etc.?
7. How many times a day do you urinate?
8. How many ounces do you urinate at a time?
Answer these questions for me and I can give a much better answer as to whether or not my program will help.
Have a great day,
Jennifer
