Being aware of how your gut health is functioning is an important part of your whole body health, along with being an important part of your pelvic floor health. Being constipated, or having diarrhea on a regular bases puts additional strain, pressure, and stress on your pelvic floor.

All these overlapping pillars influence how our body functions, including the pelvic floor. This is where we can start to connect the dots between our biology, psychology, sociology, and our pelvic floor. Our pelvic floor function is influenced by all these pillars, but also influences the pillars as well.  

Summer is upon us, and mother earth has turned the temperature up, wayyy up…. as the body heats up, so do our cortisol levels. Cortisol is our body’s stress hormone; more stress = more cortisol. Hot conditions act as a stressor to the body, which responds by producing and secreting more cortisol.

About 50% of women experience incontinence, prolapse, pelvic or back pain, or other symptoms due to pelvic floor dysfunction, sometimes even before childbirth. Pregnancy changes a lot of things in a mother’s life, including her pelvic floor.

Our muscles play a key role in our health. They allow our skeletal system to move, help us experience day to day life, and our organs are also dependent on muscle movement.

When we look at the connection between hormones and muscle integrity, we can see that there is a profound relationship between the estrogen and progesterone levels on muscular synthesis. there are estrogen receptors located throughout the pelvic floor muscles, bladder, vagina.

The holidays can be a time of wonder, joy, celebration, reconnecting with loved ones, and sometimes a little sprinkle of stress. The negative effects of stress run from your head to your toes. Headaches? Upset stomach? Picking up all the sick germs? Not sleeping well? Tight muscles? Easily fatigued? Pelvic floor dysfunction?

With the wide range of hormonal changes that occur in the body, it makes sense that the changes that occur are so wide. In this post we are going to dive into the why behind the common changes that occur in the body. Which hormones are doing a rhythmic dance and why they are so important.

There is a lot of new research showing how important it is for our mental health and brain function. The foods that we fuel our body with have an impact on all body systems, including our emotions and moods. Remembering that things like constipation and stress both have a direct impact on our pelvic floor health.

Menopause, the change of life, the big M, this change is one that happens in half of the human population and might even be the reason you’re experiencing pee leaks and pelvic floor health issues.

As we have more conversations to help normalize the discussion around incontinence, we should also work to normalize talking about poop! Because every body poops! Constipation can also lead to more bladder leaks, or frequent urination by adding excess pressure to the bladder.

“Women are not small men”, and we are underrepresented in medical studies and science. Hormonal shifts, along with other human experiences like incontinence are often seen as taboo, even within the medical world. With an estimated less than 40% of individuals experiencing incontinence reporting it to a doctor or nurse.

Chemotherapy side effects impact everyone differently, however, there are many common side effects that are shared by cancer patients. At V Lounge, some of our patients want to know, can chemotherapy cause urinary incontinence?

When it comes to urinary incontinence and bladder leakage, understanding the cause of your troubles is the first step in finding a solution. If you’ve been crossing your legs when you sneeze or avoiding exercises that put a strain on your core, there is a good chance that you might be experiencing stress incontinence. But can mental stressors also influence your bladder?

Oh no! You can feel it happening but have no way to stop it, you’ve got to cough and just know you might also pee your pants a little when you do! Though we all sometimes joke about it, there really isn’t anything funny about bladder leakage. In fact, many who suffer from bladder leakage find it uncomfortable, embarrassing, inconvenient and even expensive if they require pads, panty liners, or even incontinence underwear. So, what can you do to stop bladder leakage when coughing?