If you’re a woman of a certain age, like I am, you probably have experienced laughing so hard the tears run down your leg. Or sneezing. Or coughing. Or jogging. Or dancing. Or just about any normal everyday activity.
There may also be times when you walk in the door and barely make it to the bathroom before the geyser erupts.
There may even be embarrassing times when you don’t make it to the bathroom.
Urinary leakage is not a pretty picture, but it’s a fairly common one among menopausal women.
Technically called stress urinary incontinence, bladder leakage is caused by a weakening of the muscles that support the bladder, resulting in bladder leakage and urgency to urinate. It’s one of those unpleasant effects of aging, but it’s usually not permanent and it’s easily addressed.
Many women wear panty liners. Modern capitalism has even created a lucrative market of bladder pads and even washable bladder leakage underwear for post-menopausal women. One dear friend, who is now 80, says she has been wearing panty liners since she was 60!
I have two problems with panty liners:
- They’re messy and an ongoing unnecessary expense.
- They contain bleached cotton, which is laden with pesticides and dioxin, potential cancer-causing materials that I really don’t want in prolonged and intimate contact with my mucus membranes, thank you. They also contain some kind of unknown gel, which I also don’t want in long-term contact with those delicate areas.
There is a solution, my friends, and it is simple, safe and inexpensive.
I recently discovered the magic of vaginal weights at the behest of a similarly aged friend who is a physician’s assistant who has also experienced tears running down her leg.
Vaginal weights, also called ben-wa balls, yoni eggs and by a number of other names, are usually silicon coated egg-shaped devices, but sometimes they are plastic bullet-shaped containers for an ever-increasing number of bee bee type weights. Most have a string like a tampon for easy removal.
What do they do? They re-train your bladder control muscles, basically reminding them what they are supposed to do. Inserting the weights into your vagina and simply walking around for 15 to 20 minutes handles the problem admirably.
There are several different sizes and you can buy sets in multiple sizes. It may take some experimentation to find the correct size. Women who have had multiple vaginal births will probably need the larger sizes. You’ll want to feel it and not have the weights drop out. That’s part of the muscle challenge—to use your muscles to keep the weights from falling out.
It’s not hard, I promise! And the results are soooo worth it!
The cost? I bought a set of two sizes from Amazon for $22. There is also a larger set that has five sizes for $32. You’ll also need a tube of water-based lubricant that runs around $10 and lasts for years. That’s it. Here’s my recommendation:
Click the image or this link to view this product on Amazon. Please not that I am not affiliated in any way with this company.
For most of us, it’s not necessary to engage in daily or weekly Kegel exercises or other calisthenics.
Vaginal weights do not cure bladder leakage. You’ll need to repeat every so often (I find I need to use them about once in three months), but the task becomes increasingly simple and seems to last over time.
