No More Bladder Leak

Well, hello everybody, welcome to this Facebook Live, or maybe it is a recording you are watching. No matter what, welcome to this conversation. Oh, welcome to— I just need to stop Facebook Live. Oh, there. Okay, always it comes up on my other screen. That happened last time as well. That's what happens when we go live. That's why I call them unfiltered cozy conversation, because we don't filter out any of this. Is how we do it. Live and real. And let me just do a quick introduction. As you can see, I have my guest next to me, Dr. Sheila. And before we dive into our conversation, I just want to, for anybody new here, to let you know that I provide these conversations to add additional information and knowledge and wisdom that I don't have, that I'm not an expert on. But in general, I am your host, Charlotte Freeborg, and I am the coach for moms who are seeking fulfillment in life and career, for moms who may struggle with stress, lack of time, feeling guilt, and they want to make money. You want to make money and you want to kind of, we can say, manage this thing we call life. That's what I'm here for. And as I said earlier, because I'm not an expert on everything, I love to invite in my friends, fellow coaches, fellow authors to provide their information about their specialty. And that's why I have Dr. Sheilia with me today. So let me just read up, share briefly a little bit about who she is. So Dr. Sheilia Craig-Whiteman, and she has some of these special letters after her name. DPT, CLT is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. TV host, and health coach. She specializes in pelvic health, lymphedema, and oncology. Over the last 15 years, she has worked with hundreds of women with bladder, bowel, and painful intercourse problems, helping them to overcome their problems, pain, and Become Worry Free. She's the bestselling author of To Pee or Not to Pee, and actually I see it's hanging there behind you, Sheila, the guide for reducing and eliminating urinary incontinence, and Stop Worrying About Bladder Leaks, the guide to overcoming urinary incontinence. Her current coaching program helps women to reduce and eliminate bladder leaks. If you have ever coughed, sneezed, and had a good laugh and had a bladder leak, her program is for you. Bladder leaks are not normal. Urinary incontinence can cause anxiety and embarrassment, but they can be helped. Amazing. Welcome, Sheena.

Thank you for having me.

You are so welcome. I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you so much for for doing this, for taking your time to be here with us in Fulfilled Working Moms. So I like to start asking you, what do a pelvic floor therapist specialist like you do? What do you actually do?

That, that is a question that I get quite a bit because When I say what I do, and I've transitioned from therapy to actually coaching, I really do the same thing, but it's in a coaching capacity. But people are like, where, number one, where is the pelvic floor? I don't even understand what is going on here. But if you, even if you put your hands on your hips, so that's your pelvis, right? And on the inside of that, there are of course organs right inside, but there's also underneath there's muscle layer. And that muscle layer is around the vagina, the rectum, et cetera. And it's a bowl of muscles actually inside that help to keep the organs up, keep everything where it's supposed to be, keep our function going. And when that goes awry for whatever reason, and it's very common for that to happen actually, that's where pelvic floor therapy comes in, or pelvic floor You can even do it on a coaching because you think of coaching, you'll think more of a kind of telehealth, but not quite like that, but it can still work for you. But so if anything happens with the pelvic floor, you can have incontinence, you can have pain, you can have prolapse where your organs start to shift. There are a lot of issues that can happen there that also can happen wherever you are in your bodies. Because don't forget, you know, our bodies are very fascinating and they have to work in synchrony in order for us to feel good. So pelvic floor therapy, I know this is a long answer, but pelvic floor therapy is just concentrating on that particular area. And we also concentrate on hip stability and abdominal, because all of that is kind of intertwined. So that whole area, right?

So this is like, yeah, that's— it's good information to know that there's someone to help us when the issue is there. So I want to say that I thought, and maybe from what you just said now, I was like, oh, maybe this is not just happening for women who have given birth to children or what? Because that's, I thought that's when you get problems with your— so who may experience this? What may have happened in our life that can cause this?

Well, yeah, so bladder leaks. So I'll talk specifically about bladder leaks because pelvic pain and there's other issues in there, but I'll answer the question. Question in reference to bladder leaks. So, actually, up to— it's 1 in 4 is the statistic, but actually it's almost 33% of women will have an issue with bladder leaks in their lifetime. Okay, so that's a lot of women.

It's a lot of women.

Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily have to be that something happened. Okay, what, um, there are a couple things. So we're going to take out the 'I'm pregnant and leaking' because actually it's normal because you have this baby that's growing, that's pressing on your bladder, right? Okay. And also pressing on the muscles that are supporting everything that keeps you from leaking. Yeah. So we're going to take that one out of the situation. The leaking and pregnancy connection becomes an issue when, uh, 3 to 6 months down the line you're still leaking. Because by that time you should have healed. And I, you know, treated people with that issue and they thought it would go away. It was like, it was, you know, a year, a year and a half, and finally their doctor sent them, um, gave them a reference to see me. But, um, Generally, there are a couple of things. As you age, it's more common, but it's not necessarily the reason. The reason is because of hormonal changes. Hormonal changes, estrogen going down. Estrogen does a lot, actually, for muscle integrity. I don't know if the audience knows that. So as your estrogen And actually, your testosterone, all of those levels start to decrease as you age. And as they age, the muscles are not able to remain as strong as they normally would if you don't do anything to work with them. And then the average woman— I hate to generalize, ladies— but the average woman does not do anything to make sure that they stay strong and in order.

So when you say, when you say do, like, are those exercises where you practice the muscles? Yes, yes, because I know that's very—

exercises. Yeah, many people don't do them, or if you do them, you'll do them, you know, say for example, you were out with your friends and you leaked a little bit and you were like, oh no, this cannot happen. You'll start to do them then. Yeah, but to keep doing them long term, many of us are like, no.

And I just shared that briefly with you before we went live. I do remember a few years ago when we still had a house in Denmark and the kids had a trampoline in the garden. And I was like, Mom, come up and jump with us. And I was like, oh, that looks so fun. And I did. And I was like, in that moment I felt, whoops, my muscles have become weak. And I just remember that instant moment where I was like, like there was that rush of emotions running through me, like kind of embarrassment. Like, I can't— I don't want to have anybody to know this. It felt embarrassing. And also, like, suddenly I felt like, oh, am I getting old? I'm like, I intend to live many more years and I want to be healthy and vital and strong. So I was—

I was—

all these thoughts. I better get back to my exercises. But so I just want to share that. I'm sure that many others may have— you may have heard similar stories from many women. But now you're also saying being aware of our hormones and taking care of that, it's, it's not just the exercises maybe, but more.

Well, the hormones are part of the why. But not necessarily for everyone. And bladder leaks don't only happen— well, and I'll back up. Your hormones start to wane in your 40s. Okay, so it's a lot earlier than a lot of people realize. So yeah, so you know, you're still— you're not— you don't think of yourself as aging in your 40s, but your body is naturally aging. In their 40s. Yeah. So, you know, because that transition of menopause, uh, is the average is 50, 52, right?

Yeah.

So your hormones don't just drop off at 50, right?

They've been dropping off for years.

Like, yeah, it's not a switch.

So they slowly—

they're just dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, so it's not necessarily the hormones that are doing it, but it's the effect of where what the hormones are doing generally for your body. And it's not just that. So even weight gain can contribute to incontinence. Okay. Lack of exercise, diet. So there are quite a few variables that you have to really figure out what your issue is and why the this is happening to you, because it's not, it's not quite cookie cutter, and it could be more than one thing. Usually it is.

Okay. Yeah. So what's the— so you have worked, we know, with many, many women. What's the— is an average age where women come to you?

The average age, I would say, well, I You know, I, I maybe put it on average age.

It's not that you can be— no, sorry, I was like, I was just thinking like, is that— it's not— I just wanted to open up for the conversation. You can't be too young or too old to come and get help, right? That may be better, like, but what's the— yeah, can you talk a little bit into that thing about age and—

yeah, so maybe go— I would say, well, the average age, if I was to average it, I would say probably 50, 55. But, um, I've had, you know, one of my, uh, more recent clients, she was early 30s, um, I in, uh, early 70s. The range is really, really long.

Okay.

Um, it really is. But, um, I think people start slowing down, um, the older they get and have the time to be able to, um, uh, work on the problem. What happens with people when I see women in their, um, 30s, 40s, so people similar to the group that you have who are working moms who are taking care of everybody, who are work, you know, doing, you know, some jobs are quite time-consuming.

Right.

Yeah. The health, their health does not come first, especially bladder health or even something that's not painful, life-threatening, you know, that's going to go on the back burner because you have other things to do. You know, life is stressful. There's a lot of things, even, you know, for, uh, just in general survival, and especially during these times, it's a lot. Yeah, you know, and a lot of people are having, you know, even, you know, just, just struggling trying to, to go day to day.

But, um, so are there things that— and this is so good, Sheila, because I actually teach a system how to integrate habits without it being just another to-do list. Like, but it's such a unique system that I hear. I used to just teach it to my clients, but now I'm actually teaching it to more because I've been asked to do some workshops. And it's such a profound way to take in small little things we can do, not necessarily every day, but just more on a regular basis. The consistency Like, we don't just— you just talked about, Lila, we don't just do the muscle training once. Like, we may want to do it more. Like, I realized I stopped doing them, and whoops, that day on the trampoline, I better continue doing these. But are there things that— are the things that you could suggest women to do that, like, little exercises, little things that may not take a huge chunk of their day. Things to be aware of, some success habits, I would call it. We call it many things, but little things that women can do now before to prevent before it becomes a problem.

Yeah. So staying active is a big one. Yeah. But even doing relaxation exercises. Okay. One of the big issues that we've seen in recent years is that the, our people are very tense. That tension actually translates to the pelvic floor, which translates to tight muscles and translates to incontinence and translates to pain, translates to pain on intercourse, et cetera. So even diaphragmatic breathing and really focusing on your pelvic floor and relaxing, that can be done during the day several times. Yeah. Very beneficial. The mini squats, if you're not having an issue, because I'll talk to people who are not having an issue who are trying to do prevention. Because if you have an issue, then you have to maybe figure that part out. And then go from there. But you can do squats during the day, say for example, and you can integrate it where, okay, well, every time I'm washing the dishes, I'll do 10 squats.

I like that. Yeah. That's just so good that you incorporate things. Yeah. And every shower time.

Yeah. Right. You can incorporate pelvic floor contractions or Kegels. And I'll say this about Kegels. When I was in the clinic, we do check your pelvic floor strength manually. Probably 90% of the women who thought that they were doing their Kegels correctly were not. So I'll just put that out there. So really make sure that you're doing them correctly. Yeah. But that being said, you can set a habit for if you watch television, say, for example. So even in the evening— and a lot of people with young children and jobs, In the evening, you're just sitting down like, okay, well, let me just sit down for a couple hours or whatever and veg out.

Yeah.

You know, once everybody gets settled. Okay. So you're going to veg out for that first half hour, watch your television show. And then, um, on the second one, on the commercial, like the first 3 commercials sets, do 10 Kegels, you know? So you're not getting up, you're not doing anything. You just said, okay, well, when I watch my show at 9 o'clock, or what if you have one favorite show? Because it always comes. Because then you're sure to sit and watch that one. So if you have a favorite show and then you sit there and then you're just going to do, okay, oh, this is a commercial. Let me just, okay, here's another commercial. Let me just get 10 Kegels, 10 or 20. And then you're, you know, that's it. Yeah. You know, so you're maintaining the integrity of your pelvic floor. You're integrating that with something that you normally do. You know, so it's not, uh, okay, well, let me go in here and sit down so I can do these kibbles, you know. Oh my goodness. Well, you know, it's not like it's anything different.

Yeah, that's brilliant.

Yeah, you can just integrate it that way.

Yeah. And I assume if anybody never really— you just mentioned it's important to do it the right way, then you are there to teach that. And yeah.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of women, many women were substituting. So if you're doing a pelvic floor contraction or a Kegel and you feel that you're tightening up your— like even holding your breath, tightening up your glutes, squeezing your thighs together, then you're not— you're substituting muscles.

Okay.

You don't really want to feel anything in the area. You're going to feel slight abdominal, lower abdominal contraction, but it's very slight. You really want to feel the pelvic floor lift up. So it's not squeezing. You just want to do that squeeze and lift up. Yeah. And that's how you know that you— and you have to— you want to be able to actually feel that. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's how you know you're having an effective exercise. Just if you exercised your bicep, um, you want to see something moving, like you want to feel the muscle contracting. And it's the same thing, muscle is muscle, and it's just in a different spot.

Yeah, yeah. So it requires a little bit of focus, maybe especially in the beginning, but that's how it is with everything. Yes. Do you want to tell some stories of what you have experienced with women you have worked with? Maybe like give some examples just to give hope for anybody who may think, oh, I don't know where to start, like some success stories you want to share? Sure, sure.

And I'll start out by saying, and this is research, so I'm not just saying it, you know, from what my experience is or just talking off the cuff, but if you have bladder leaks and they don't have any kind of medical issue, say for example, you have a neurological, you know, bladder problem, something like that. But if you just have bladder leaks, straight bladder leaks, the success rate for you curing that or stopping them, reducing them, is over 90%. So this, yeah, so this is not something that if you have bladder leaks, you just have them forever because so many women will just put on a, you know, pad, menstrual pad, go on about their business.

But they may not think, where can I get help for this? I mean, I don't—

will they go to the doctor and think they can get a pill for it? I mean, I imagine. Yeah, there are pills for it, but okay, you don't really want to, you know, you don't want to add in extra pills that you're going to take for the rest of your life that mask an issue that you can just fix. Exactly right.

Yeah, you go to the cause, you go to the root of what caused it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and then to do a story, because you did ask me that in the beginning But I've had, uh, so I've had, let me, let me think. So, uh, women, I had a, I did have a client, she was, she was in her mid-50s, who actually her problem started, and it started probably, uh, I would say, uh, 6, 7 years prior to her seeing me. Yeah, because women tend to wait a long time before they do fix this. So hers started with the, um coughing and sneezing and a little bit of leakage when she coughs and sneezes. And it just kept happening. It just kept happening. One day she was at work in a meeting and thought— and she was wearing a Lite Pad, right? So she was wearing a Lite Pad because she had been coughing and sneezing and leaking. She thought that she had leaked through her pad and she was so mortified, just so mortified. And afraid and embarrassed. And she said, you know, I just sat there until the end of the meeting. You know, I tried to do busy work so I was the last one to leave the room. And, um, you know, and then she got up. Unfortunately, she had not leaked through her— she had leaked now a lot more than she usually did, but it didn't go through her clothing, you know, because that would have been the ultimate, um, issue. So she came to see me because of that, because usually it does take a, um, like a really, uh, an event for people that just— for that light bulb to come on, right? Oh my goodness, I can't do this. So we— and we went through, we went through why, you know, did a lot of education because a lot of it is education. And you know, why is this happening to me? And then what I can do. Once you understand what's going on, you can kind of manage it. Yeah. But hers, we did lifestyle changes, uh, including food activity. We did some work to manage her bowels because that affects your bladder. Yeah, some work for exercise, you know, some exercises. Yeah. And then just try to— and then some, we call it brain-bladder conditioning because part of that also goes with, you go to the bathroom like every 45 minutes. Every hour, every hour and a half because you don't want to leak. And that's of course not normal. No. So you want to normalize that because you want to be able to sit through a movie, you want to be able to sit through a meeting and not worry about leaking. Yeah. So those kinds of things. Learn what your irritants for your bladder are. Learn how to hydrate so that you are not in that mindset of Well, I'm not going to drink anything because if I don't drink, I won't have to go to the bathroom. It doesn't work like that. Right.

No, then we don't train the muscles, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like tensing up. It gives that same, like you talk about.

Your bladder then is not happy. You have concentrated urine. So that's a bladder irritant. So every time you go to move, a couple of drops are going to try to come out because your bladder's like, I don't want this in here. This is like poison to me. It's coming out. So that actually does not work. Yeah. So, and after the program she did, I mean, she did very well. The— it usually takes, um, you'll start to see a difference probably in that 6-week mark.

Okay. I was just going to ask what kind of time. I'm sure that's different from person, how much you are engaging and all that, but that's a good—

it is different. And then by 3 months you usually You're gonna go, okay, I'm good.

Oh, that's great. And this can be something that women have struggled with for years, and then once they go— and I'm sure they— you may have heard many say, I wish I had come to you earlier.

Honestly, yes, all the time. They— I mean, they are literally crying. Oh, you have changed my life. I cannot believe that I waited. And you know, you can use that comment for so many things that us as women, um, don't do to take care of ourselves. Yeah, it could be like anything. It'd be like, you have changed my life, I cannot believe I waited so long.

It's so important. And what we often don't see when we are so caught up in what you also referred to earlier, taking care of everybody else, we don't see that once we slow down and take care of ourselves first, we can actually take way better care of the people around us that we love. Like, because we come from a full cup, we come from a healthy body. Like, you— when people work with you, it's such a different way to show up for— I mean, not just do we feel different, but also for others.

Yes.

Yes.

And in the case of, um, bladder leaks, What it does too, what people don't realize is that if you're worried about bladder leaks, you start to close up your life. You close up your social. I don't want to go and do this because I don't want to be bothered with, you know, what if I leak? I don't want to go to the movies because I always miss the good part because I have to go to the bathroom.

Oh my God, I can totally see that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah, so it was sad.

Yeah, that's really sad. That's what we said. Wow, Sheila, you won't believe it, we almost talked for half an hour, and I'm trying to keep these conversations within 30 minutes, but we talked about— it's not a long time, but I think with busy moms, we just— it's a good amount of time. Yeah. So I want everybody to know where they can seek more information about you, and I do know you have a website, it's called the Pelvic Coach. We will share the link in the, in the comments below once the video has posted. And if there's anything else, maybe they want to read— I see you have the book behind you.

I do. I have, um, and I'll put the link in. I actually have— I don't even know if you can see the other book, but they're both there.

What is the other one?

I see the P The other one is Stop Worrying About Bladder Leaks: The Guide to Overcoming Urinary Incontinence. So, you know, I'm the urinary incontinence girl, so I just keep writing about urinary incontinence because no one should have urinary incontinence if they don't have to. But yeah, so when you put the information up, there's also a link where you can get a free copy of the first book. The second book, you can get a free copy of that off website. And, um, also I'll put, like, if you're interested in, um, hearing about any— I do a lot of, you know, I have— you mentioned the television show, so I do a lot of, um, speaking to coaches, um, health professionals. There might be a topic in there that you're interested in also, so I can put that link up.

And, um, I know you had