exercise

Our health is one of those weird things that we don't really think about until something isn't working properly or we are in pain

I think why I didn't enjoy pregnancy the first time round was because I expected things to work/feel as they always did, and that definitely wasn't true anymore!  It's also why peri-menopause is a challenge...

I certainly never considered my pelvic floor until after having my first baby/prolapse

And when I injured my back, the constant pain impacted everything I di…

After the tale of my thumb injury in last week's email it turns out I am, as my family would say, in the wars

We went for a little wander last week before school started again

I went to cross the road and stepped off the kerb - not realising it was a double kerb

So my foot landed too heavy too soon, my ankle gave way and I fell onto both knees into the road

Luckily it was a Sunday and there was no traffic!

But I hurt my ankles, knees and feet - and my pride!

I was worried that it would ham…

Did you start your health goals this week? 

For me it was lovely to start easy with Aerobics on Wednesday and then just a few classes

I did have to start even easier than I thought I would have to though...

We had a fun New Years Day - going in to Manchester to go bowling

I was very happy to win our first game and get the highest score I've ever had!

We also did a bit of ping pong and karaoke

As we were leaving we spotted a punching ball test your strength so decided to have one last chal…

I started to suffer with anxiety and obviously that brings in struggling to breathe sometimes and then panic attacks and that kind of thing.

I was also struggling with putting weight on and was mindful that I needed to do some exercise - I wanted to lose weight but also had anxiety going on.

I felt like all the other kind of exercise that I did - swimming, joining the gym, walking - they just never hit the anxiety. 

So I would do them and never feel relaxed or feel calm. And then I would go t…

I've been posting a lot on Facebook recently as I'm trying to raise my profile a bit

And it's obviously working as I'm reaching more people

But with that come people who aren't really a good fit for what I do

This meant that last week I got trolled on one of my videos 

It was just a simple video - showing hip circles as a way to ease out your back and hips after sitting for a while

So nothing massively fitness about it and nothing controversial

But this bloke said that if I lost some fat t…

Last week we looked at things you can do in your daily life to help prevent POP or worsening symptoms - if you missed that you can read it here

Today we're looking at possible solutions to helping with symptoms.

Kegels

This is the lifting and squeezing of your pelvic floor muscles in isolation.  Usually includes a series of lifts, holds and pulses

Advantages:

• easy to fit in
• no equipment required
• can do anywhere, anytime

Disadvantages:

• not everyone does them correctly - may be bear…

It's been a while since my first blog about prolapse and a few things have changed since then.  So I thought I'd do a couple of updates

There are two ways you can look at helping with POP symptoms - what can you do to prevent things getting worse and what can you do to make things better.

So first we'll look at preventing things getting worse

One of the key things with this is looking at intra abdominal pressure (IAP)

IAP is the pressure within the abdominal cavity and is reliant on the flui…

I had a Balinese-inspired massage last week and the beginning of the ritual was to put a heated eye mask on

I then enjoyed being massaged with small and large bamboo sticks as well as with hands. 

Then the time came to roll over...

Weirdly, having an eye mask on made it really difficult for me to turn! 

That small dulling of one of my senses affected the rest of my body, especially my proprioception - where I was in space.  In the end I had to lift it off my eyes so that I felt safe to move!…

I was asked a few weeks ago for the top exercises someone could do to help a prolapse. 

My answers were:

1. It depends
2. Hypopressives

The thing with prolapse is that it can happen because of so many factors and it's not just about strengthening the pelvic floor. 

And even just pelvic floor strength isn't that simple.

The pelvic floor is made up of layers of muscle, going in a variety of directions.

It has links with muscles inside the pelvis and outside the pelvis.

It has connections all…