Overactive Pelvic Floor Muscles
Definition:
the inability or difficulty to relax the pelvic floor muscle, often interfering with normal function of the bowel/bladder and sexual function
Symptoms:
- Frequency: Emptying the bladder or bowels more than 7 times in 24 hours
- Urgency: the complaint of a sudden compelling desire to pass urine, which is difficult to ignore
- Urinary retention: difficultly or inability to start the flow of urine, often results in the feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder
- Obstructive voiding/Obstructive defecation: difficulty or inability to begin and maintain urination or defecation, often results in the feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder or bowels
Conditions:
- Interstitial Cystitis: also known as painful bladder syndrome, characterized by frequency, urgency to urinate, and supra-pubic pain often relieved by urination
- Dyspareunia: see Pelvic and Sexual Pain Section
- Pelvic Pain: see Pelvic and Sexual pain section
- Constipation: a condition associated with difficulty in passing a bowel movement