Our pelvic floor controls both our bladder and our bowel. It controls our continence and our ease of emptying on the toilet. We will take a detailed history of your bladder and bowel function and complete an assessment to understand the contributing factors to your concerns.
Urinary incontinence
1 in 3 women leak urine, common but not normal. Physiotherapy is first line treatment for bladder leakage with 70-90% of women’s symptoms improving and completely resolving. Stress incontinence and urgency or urge incontinence are the most common types.
Common symptoms of bladder dysfunction:
- Leakage with coughing, sneezing, exercise, lifting.
- Frequent urinary tract infections
- Inability to empty fully on the toilet, urinary retention
- Difficulty to defer the urge to go to the toilet
- Going to the bathroom more frequently
- Leaking on the way to the toilet
- Fear of leaking
- Bladder prolapse
Bowel dysfunction
Common symptoms of bowel dysfunction:
- Constipation
- Inability to control wind or poo
- Difficulty to control the urge
- Haemorrhoids and anal fissures
- Difficulty emptying your rectum
- Rectal prolapse
- Anal prolapse
Your individualised treatment program will be created to address your main concerns. Women’s health physiotherapy plays a major role in treating bladder and bowel concerns and provides huge improvements to your symptoms. We will work together with specialists and other allied health practitioners that you may be seeing to get the best outcome for you.
