Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy (PFPT) is commonly used to treat urinary incontinence. While seeing a professional is often recommended, doing so can be challenging to fit into your schedule or budget.  This may leave you wondering if you can do pelvic floor physical therapy at home.

Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy at Home

Kegel Exercises

Kegel exercises are the most basic exercise you can do to help strengthen your pelvic floor.

1. Find the Right Muscles: Imagine you’re trying to stop the flow of urine midstream without contracting your abdominal or thigh muscles.
2. Hold and Release: Contract your pelvic floor muscles for 5-10 seconds, then relax for the same duration.
3. Repeat: Aim for 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions daily.

It can take a few weeks to few months to see results from doing Kegel’s consistently.

Physical Therapist Recommended Exercise

Even if you don’t have the ability to see pelvic floor physical therapist for a prolonged period of time, you could learn a few targeted at home exercises in just a few visits.  A physical therapist will be able to identify muscle imbalances or weakness that could be contributing to your incontinence and make personalized recommendations.  You can then continue these exercises at home.  It will be important to do them on a consistent basis to see improvements.

Neuromuscular Stimulation

Treatments like Elitone utilize neuromuscular stimulation to target and tone the pelvic floor muscles.  Elitone is an external treatment product that is worn like a pad. Daily sessions of just 20 minutes will help to improve your urinary incontinence symptoms in as little as six weeks..  Unlike other exercises for pelvic floor physical therapy at home, you can use Elitone while continuing with your daily routine.  Elitone is clinically tested, FDA-cleared, and physician-recommended.