Tracking Your Pelvic Floor Symptoms

Tracking your pelvic floor symptoms is essential for building your unique roadmap to pelvic floor health. 

Tracking your symptoms can be as simple as making a note of what your issue is. You might want to note how often this is happening and anything else that is worrying you about your symptoms.

Writing it down is so important.

Often, when we are in that long awaited appointment, it can be hard to remember all the questions we wanted to ask so having something written down can be invaluable.

Having a more comprehensive symptom report to discuss with your medical professional will not only allow you both to have an accurate discussion of your issues, but will enable you to get you the help you need, faster. 

But this is more easily said than done. 

When I was suffering my own incontinence symptoms, I was so mortified by each incident that I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening and forget about it as quickly as I could.

This was a mistake.

What would have helped me so much more was a little curiosity.

If I investigated when and what was happening, I would have been able to find solutions that worked so much quicker instead of bouncing around different medical professionals hoping they would be the one to ‘cure’ me. 

Having an understanding of what is going on with your body, what you find confusing, and what you want help with will really help you work with your medical professional and get the results you want. 

So what exactly should you be tracking when it comes to pelvic floor health? 

You may feel that your issue is very specific (like you leak wee or struggle to hold a fart) but a comprehensive list of your circumstances will add depth to your diagnosis and enable your medical professional to get you the support you need. 

For a couple of weeks make a note of the following:

How many times a day do you wee?

How many times do you wake in the night to wee?

How many times do you poo? What time of day? What is the consistency?

Alcohol/ coffee consumption - how much, time of day?

How often do you have an issue? 

What is your issue (pain/ bulging feeling/ wee incontinence/ poo incontinence)?

How bad is the issue (from a dribble to full flow/ rate pain on a scale from 0-10)?

Are there any triggers that you can identify?

What else is going on when this happens (additional stress/ unusual foods/ period/ alcohol or coffee consumption)?

Do you wet yourself in your sleep? On waking?

How do these incidents make you feel?

Are you constipated at any point? For how long?

It’s vital that you make note of:

1. what is happening
2. when it is happening
3. how often it is happening
4. anything unusual or triggering that might be going on when it is happening
5. how it makes you feel or how you are adapting your behaviour to cope (i.e. cancelled plans, leaving social situations early, avoiding intimacy, etc.)

That way, your medical professional will have a clear picture of what is going on and how it is affecting you - all of which will enable a more accurate diagnosis.

To make this simpler for you, we’ve made you a handy free printable download which will make it easy for you to track all the relevant symptoms of your pelvic floor issue and share them with your medical professional. 

We’ve broken this down into a simple three step process. First, you'll identify which issues apply to you by doing a questionnaire. Then you take the results and put them in the tracker to make it unique to you. Finally, fill it in each evening for a couple of weeks and you'll have a comprehensive report on your pelvic floor symptoms to discuss with your medical professional. 

You’ll find it here. 

Do let us know if you like it.

For more accessible, practical content like this, follow us on Instagram (@sheela.ie) and YouTube (@sheelawomen). 

Lastly, if there is a woman out there you think might need to hear any of this, please share. Talking about these issues is essential if we're going to help women move past them.