Justj, here are some notes from my draft book: Pelvic Floor Training is designed to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and improve your ability to hold urine. A complete Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation program may include biofeedback, functional electrical stimulation, pelvic floor muscle exercises, and, for women, PFME using vaginal cones.
Biofeedback is a safe, minimally invasive, and relatively inexpensive therapy using electronic or mechanical devices to provide feedback about a person's pelvic floor contractions to aid in controlling urinary or fecal incontinence. The devices measure pelvic contractions in one of two ways. During the pelvic floor exercise, they usually measure the electrical activity of the pelvic floor or manometric pressure via a probe temporarily placed in either the vagina or anus. A majority of persons using biofeedback therapy with pelvic muscle exercises report improvements in controlling incontinence.
Pelvic Floor or “Kegel” exercises strengthen the pelvic floor muscles (PFM) that help us control both urinary and fecal leaks. Kegel exercises are effective for those with stress, urge, or mixed incontinence, but are particularly effective for those with stress urinary incontinence. A problem for many is doing them correctly. A female therapist (Ph.D.) had me demonstrate the exercises while she held her gloved finger up my anus to ensure that the correct muscles were being used.
How long will it take to see improvement? That varies significantly from one individual to the next. You can expect to see some improvement in two weeks and marked improvement within a month. However, expect several months to reach your goal. In my opinion, the numbers of repetitions are not sacred and the most important thing is plain ordinary persistence. Just staying with your program is more important than the specifics of how you perform any particular Kegel exercise or how many times.
I hope this helps. Don't worry about it and just go with the program.
--John
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