Weak Pelvic Floor Muscles: Symptoms and Causes

The pelvic floor is a combination of muscles and ligaments in your pelvis area. It works as a sling for your pelvic organs, such as the bladder, rectum, and uterus. Contracting and relaxing pelvic floor muscles allow you to control your bowel movements, urination, and also during sexual intercourse for women.

What are the symptoms of weak pelvic floor muscles?

Weak pelvic floor muscles can affect your daily life and significantly interfere with daily activities. For example, peeing a little while coughing, sneezing, laughing, or running to reach the bathroom in time are all signs of a compromised pelvic floor. Other symptoms include:

• Release of wind from the anus or the vagina while bending over or lifting something.

• Decreased vaginal sensation

• Tampons that fall out or dislodge

• A noticeable protrusion at the vaginal opening

• A feeling of heaviness in the vaginal area

• Pelvic floor muscles that are too tight

• When the pelvic floor muscles become stiff and unable to relax, it is known as the hypertonic pelvic floor muscles. Constipation, painful sex, urgency, and pelvic discomfort are common symptoms of a strained pelvic floor.

How do pelvic floor muscles weaken?

When the pelvic floor muscles are strained, weaker, or overly tight, they might cause some health issues.

While some people have weak pelvic floor muscles from a young age, others might experience problems after going through a critical life period like- pregnancy, childbirth, or menopause.

In some cases, people’s pelvic floor muscles might get overworked, and they may feel unable to relax. Here, squeezing exercises or overworking their muscles without learning how to relax them might aggravate their condition.

Though pinning down someone’s exact cause of weakened pelvic floor muscles is usually quite uncertain, here are a few possible factors that might contribute towards weakened pelvic floor muscles over time and age:

• Overworking pelvic floor muscles or not keeping them active.

• Having multiple normal deliveries

• Back pain in the past

• Constipation and straining to empty the bowels on a regular basis

• Obesity or being overweight

• A lot of lifting (e.g., at work or the gym)

• Persistent cough or sneeze (e.g., due to asthma, smoking, or hayfever)

• An injury to the pelvic region in the past (e.g., a fall, surgery, or pelvic radiotherapy)

• Ageing

• Estrogen levels drop after menopause.

Your pelvic floor muscles, like your arm, leg, or abdominal (tummy) muscles, can be consciously controlled and strained, despite being concealed from view. You may actively support your bladder and bowel by strengthening your pelvic floor muscles. This improves bladder and bowel control and lowers the chances of leaking from your bladder or bowel by accident. Your pelvic floor muscles, like other muscles in your body, will strengthen with regular activity. This is critical for men and women alike. Strong pelvic floor muscles can significantly help prevent incontinence and prolapse.

How to strengthen the weak pelvic floor muscles?

Like any other muscle in our body, our pelvic floor, too, can be trained to get stronger with exercises. For example, Kegels are very effective and efficient in helping solve problems related to weak pelvic floor muscles. Just remember to be patient if you choose to exercise as a means of treatment (or even just for your overall health). The results are definitely positive but become noticeable only after at least a month or more of training.

Some other non-surgical ways to effectively strengthen your weak pelvic floor muscles are:

• Reducing constipation by increasing your daily intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber, and water, as irregular bowel movement can weaken pelvic floor muscles.

• Getting medical help for a chronic cough. Coughing can put a strain on the bladder and pelvic floor muscles as the pelvic floor muscles must clench with each cough to prevent leakage.

• Biofeedback therapy

Though the doctors always suggest improvements in diet and sustainable weight loss as the first step towards healthy pelvic floor muscles, in some cases, surgery might seem the only option. This is particularly true in cases of extreme laxity and pelvic organ prolapse. Some surgeries that might help here are:

1. Laser Vaginal Tightening - This is a non-invasive treatment wherein a laser probe is used to restore vaginal elasticity. The treatment takes 4 to 5 sessions to complete, each session lasts 20 minutes and is done within the gap of 25 days. Laser vaginal tightening involves no cuts, sutures, blood loss, pain, or hospitalization, so patients can recover rapidly.

1. Vaginoplasty- It is a surgical procedure that includes the construction or reconstruction of the vagina. It is used to treat a variety of medical conditions, including vaginal damage from childbirth and difficulties from pelvic floor disease.

To know more about consultation, treatment options, procedures, cost, our list of doctors, and empanelled hospitals, we suggest you call us directly or fill our ‘Book My Appointment’ form through our website. Our experts will reach you and help guide you through the step-by-step procedure.