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Posts Tagged ‘biofeedback’

Incontinence and Alternative Medicine Offer Sensible Solutions for Managing Incontinence

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

The causes of incontinence are numerous and varied, and so are the treatments. Incontinence can be treated or at least managed by many different methods as well. Sometimes a simple behavioral change is enough to alleviate the symptoms of urinary incontinence, and other times medication or surgery may be indicated. If you are dealing with incontinence, you may want to consider supporting your doctor’s recommendations with a natural or alternative medicine.

It is also a good idea to add regular Kegel exercises to your incontinence and alternative medicine efforts. By combining biofeedback, exercise, acupuncture and traditional medicine, you are setting yourself up for success when it comes to managing your urinary incontinence.

Biofeedback helps you understand what you are feeling when you flex your muscles, and what your body is telling you. It can be used to help you perform effective pelvic floor muscle exercises, and it can also help you control your bladder muscles.

Kegel exercises are the exercises that contract your pelvic floor muscles. By performing Kegel exercises correctly and contracting and releasing your pelvic floor muscles, you can strengthen these muscles to help you regain continence. The pelvic floor muscles are important because they support the bladder, urethra and uterus if you are a woman.

Other exercises like yoga and pilates, when practiced correctly can be very helpful for strengthening the muscles of the pelvic floor, which makes both of these exercise disciplines very valuable when it comes to managing urinary incontinence.

Acupuncture has also proven effective in relieving symptoms of urinary incontinence, because it helps to tone muscles and increases the blood flow to the bladder. Acupuncture can also restore hormone balance, reduce inflammation and give the immune system a boost.

Nutrition also plays an important part in maintaining urinary continence. Aside from maintaining a healthy weight, you will want to eliminate foods that can irritate the bladder like acidic foods, such as tomato and grapefruit, caffeine, alcohol, sweetener substitutes, sugar and spicy foods. If you are not sure which foods have an adverse effect on you, keep a food diary and see if any patterns emerge between what you ingest and your incontinence problems.

Incontinence and alternative medicine are a natural fit, and as you are working through the solution to your problem, absorbant pads can free you from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. They come in many different sizes and absorbencies to deal with any problem from mild to severe. They protect clothing and furniture, and they offer protection from skin irritation. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads, which may be ordered online and delivered discreetly right to your front door.

Further Incontinence Articles

Biofeedback Helps Reduce Urinary Leakage after Prostate Surgery

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

One of the common side effects of prostate surgery in men is urinary leakage. It can take up to six months for the symptoms to subside, and for about twenty percent of patients it can take even longer. Physical therapists have noted that behavioral training has been very successful in decreasing the length and severity of the incontinence that can occur after prostate surgery. There is also some indication that behavioral training before surgery might also help speed full recovery.

Behavioral training consists of a biofeedback session where men learn to control bladder muscles. They also get instruction for doing proper muscle exercises to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor. Doctors used a rectal balloon probe to measure the muscle response in their patients, so that they can verify that the patient is doing the exercise correctly. The probe also gives the doctor and patient instant visual feedback showing the patient’s success.

Doctors studied two groups of post surgery patients. One group was using biofeedback and doing the exercises to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, and the other group was not. In the group of patients that were using biofeedback their average time to regaining full continence was about three and a half months. For the group that was not exercising over half of the men were still having problems with incontinence after six months.

There is a direct correlation between how early and how actively the patient engages in his pelvic floor muscle exercise regimen and how quickly he regains full continence after surgery. So if you are facing prostate surgery, make sure to talk to your doctor about biofeedback and regular exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.

As you are working through your recovery, you will want to get through your ordeal with the help of good quality incontinence products. DryForLife offers a discreet and completely confidential solution to all your incontinence needs. Your concerns are very much our concerns; we have been providing incontinence products for over forty years, and we are here to help.

Further Men’s Health Articles

What is Incontinence Biofeedback?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Biofeedback is a method of understanding an action that takes place in the body through the use of lights or sounds. Biofeedback can be used in incontinence to help women who are having difficulty in learning to control their pelvic floor muscles. Because pelvic floor muscles do not come neatly labelled, some women have trouble locating these muscles in order to peform Kegel exercises.

Biofeedback is used as a tool to teach you how to isolate and exercise these muscles, which are so important in bladder control. Using sounds and computer graphs, a therapist can help you to exercise the all-important pelvic floor muscles, which can help improve incontinence.

Biofeedback is not painful. During biofeedback, sensors are placed on either side of the anus, as this is where the pelvic floor muscles are closest to the surface. Sensors are also placed on the abdomen because many women use their abdominal muscles instead of their pelvic floor muscles when performing Kegels. A graph and lights and/or sounds will be emitted from the computer attached to the sensors while you are performing Kegels, and you will be able to see clearly when you are using your muscles correctly. Most women require only a few sessions before they are able to perform Kegels effectively and efficiently.

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