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  1. Once a pregnant woman starts to experience pelvic floor dysfunction and starts to get symptoms, they may not go away in the postpartum period.
  2. Perinatal education is absolutely critical and showing women how to protect their muscles so they bounce back quicker.
  3. Showing women what positions to labor in so they don’t put themselves at a risk for an orthopedic injury is also critical.
  4. If you had an injury pre-pregnancy and then were put in a labor position that exasperated that injury, in the postpartum period, you might need rehabilitation.
  5. Isa thinks the most important thing is to have a very well curated self-care program that you can do on your own.
  6. 50% of older women will experience a pelvic organ prolapse.
  7. A lot of older woman, as their hormones change, will have some laxity or dryness in the tissue contributing to leaking, painful intercourse, or prolapse.
  8. As women go through perimenopausal and menopausal stage, Isa suggests they pay even more attention to their pelvic floor and have a very well curated self-care program.
  9. 50% of older women leak, 49% have incontinence, and one out of three have chronic sexual pain.
  10. The pelvic floor muscles hold the uterus, the bladder, the intestines, and the rectum.
  11. When these muscles lose their tone, and their elasticity, or they’ve been injured, sometimes the muscles become weak or too tight or combination of both, and these organs can drop into the vagina or outside the vagina.
  12. A Kegel is a deep contraction of the pelvic floor muscles while incorporating a lift. An inward and then an upward lift as you exhale, similar to doing a bicep curl.
  13. Isa teaches over 25 different types of kegels in her program.
  14. Circulation is critical for any body part, especially the pelvic floor, because it helps to increase sensation, stop leaking, reduce frequent bathroom trips, reduce the risk of organ prolapse, and helps with intensity of orgasms.
  15. Isa finds that a lot of women are too tight because of stress, anxiety, overdoing it, improper body mechanics, and sitting too long, and need the reverse kegel, opening, relaxing, and massaging until they come back into balance and then they can strengthen.
  16. The pelvic floor is from the bottom of the ribs all the way to the top of your hips.
  17. Sometimes if the pelvic floor muscles are too tight, women have poor ability to go to the bathroom, and are heavily constipated. That’s because the pelvic floor muscles have to be balanced and supple, and be able to relax in order for urination and defecation to occur.
  18. The pelvic floor muscles are highly innovated and have a huge amount of lymphatics and circulation, so many times when there’s yeast and candida and high levels of toxins in the body, the pelvic floor muscles will become more constricted.
  19. A good detoxification program sometimes helps with the pelvic floor healing.
  20. Toxins stuck in your lymphatic tissue, and metals like aluminum and mercury can cause numbness and tingling that can affect the nerves in the pelvic floor.
  21. There’s also a lot of like pesticides that contribute to endometriosis and other heavy metals that affect your sex hormones and can complicate any physical issues that you’re having in the pelvic region.
  22. Isa believes the first line of defense before anybody does surgery or considers taking any kind of pill, is do conservative natural therapy.
  23. Join Isa’s free Pelvic Floor Masterclass where you’ll discover easy and natural ways to heal your pelvic health so you can start living your life without pain, discomfort and embarrassment! Go to Pelvicpainrelief.com/wendy

 

Wendy Myers: Hello everyone. My name is Wendy Myers of myersdetox.com. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Myers Detox Podcast. Today we are going to be talking about pelvic health, pelvic floor muscles, urinary incontinence, prolapse, and different types of injuries that can happen including urinary incontinence and other things that can go wrong and haywire in women after they have a baby or they’re going into menopause or just there are just ways you can injure yourself also.

Wendy Myers: If your pelvic floor muscles become weak and atrophy, which happens to so many women because they don’t have an awareness about their pelvic floor muscles, and they also just… they just don’t know how to exercise them also. So we’re going to be talking with Isa Herrera on the show today. She’s so hilarious. This is such a good podcast. And she’s going to talk about how to recover from pelvic floor injury and urinary incontinence and give you options because when you’re at your doctors, they really don’t have a lot of options for pelvic floor injuries or how to strengthen them. They just say, “If there’s no pill or surgery, you’re really not getting any answers.” And so many women suffer and live with urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse and other injuries that I personally have suffered as well after having a baby, and it’s not necessary. And Isa Herrera is determined to change that and help women.

Wendy Myers: So the things we’re going to talk about today is why pelvic floor injuries are so common after giving birth and in menopause? And how to reclaim your pelvic power with three simple exercises and how to avoid surgery. Why 30 million women are suffering from pelvic pain and what they can do to heal naturally. They’re having pain during intercourse and this can be addressed naturally. And how pelvic floor health can influence digestive health and constipation and things like that.

Wendy Myers: And we’ll talk about the Kegel controversy and why kegels can hurt bladder and sexual health if they’re not done correctly. There’s a lot of different types of kegels, it’s not just a one size fits all. And how to create perfect down there muscles for a stronger orgasms. We’ll also talk how to stop and avoid wearing diapers. So seriously you can fix that. The Depends diapers and other diapers out there for adults are very expensive and they’re not necessary, you can reverse urinary incontinence. And also why your doctor doesn’t know anything about healing the pelvic floor, at least most doctors, and you’re not going to get these options from them that we’re going to talk about today on the show.

Wendy Myers: So listen up because every woman needs to know this information. At some point in your life you could experience issues with your vajayjay and pelvic floor health if you don’t maintain strong healthy muscles down there. And so some of you guys listening to this show are obviously interested in heavy metal toxicity, what your body burden of muscles is. So I created a quiz called heavymetalsquiz.com. It takes two seconds to take it and based all these lifestyle questions, you’ll get an answer as to your relative level of toxins in your body and then a free video series afterwards about what to do next. And a lot of very common questions that people have about detoxification like, “Where do I start? What kind of testing should I do? What kind of supplements are best to start with?” Common detox mistakes, and a lot of frequently asked questions that people have when they’re first starting out to detox their body of heavy metals and chemicals. So go check it out at heavymetalsquiz.com.

Wendy Myers: My guest today, Isa Herrera, she’s an MSPT and CSCS, and she’s a licensed pelvic physical therapist as well as an expert in integrative pelvic floor therapies. She developed her expertise in diagnosing and treating pelvic pain, leaking and prolapsed by helping over 14,000 women since 2005 at her New York City, Madison Avenue, healing center called the Renew PT. Isa pioneered the use of integrated modalities like Maya massage, cold laser therapy, sound healing, and Andean energy techniques with evidence-based physical therapy in ways that had never been done before.

Wendy Myers: Isa incorporates a mind, body, spirit approach to all pelvic healing and believes that every woman holds a key to her own healing and can be her own inner doctor. I believe that too. And she’s also the author of five books on the topic of pelvic floor dysfunction and pelvic pain, including the newly released international bestseller, Female Pelvic Alchemy. Isa’s new online school, pelvicreliefpain.com, brings all of her expertise to a global audience, incorporating exercises, self-care techniques and integrative tools to maximize female healing and professional training. So you can learn more about Isa at pelvicpainrelief.com.

Wendy Myers: Isa, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Isa Herrera: I am super excited to be here.

Wendy Myers: Yes. So tell me a little bit about your work and how you got involved in helping women with their pelvic issues.

Isa Herrera: Well, when I started out my career many, many moons ago, I was a personal trainer and working in orthopedic physical therapy and they say, there are moments that come where your entire life gets turned around and changed. And the day that I had my daughter was the day that I birthed my purpose. Because until then, I had no idea what the pelvic floor was. I was just like happy. I was walking around. I didn’t even pay attention, honestly. Which is really interesting that there’s no preventative care recommended to girls these days in school or even be taught about the pelvic floor.

Isa Herrera: And when I had all this trauma in my pelvis, I kept going from one doctor to another doctor to another doctor in search of answers. And then in PT school they actually taught you zero. Like I had a 30 minute lecture on the pelvic floor, in my online program the lecture is three hours long on anatomy alone. So that’s how I started my whole process. And then I knew intuitively that you can heal naturally because we’re dealing with a set of muscles. When I’m dealing with… It’s organic. Muscles, nerves, fascia. And from being a personal trainer, I knew that there had to be natural ways to heal yourself.

Isa Herrera: And so I went on this whole mission. I shadowed all the top doctors in the country. I took every single course I can get my hands on. I researched absolutely everything. And then I pivoted my entire life and opened up a practice on Madison Avenue.

Wendy Myers: And well, what happened to you? So you gave birth to your child and then what symptoms were you having that led you down this path, like so many women are dealing with?

Isa Herrera: Yeah, that’s a really great question, Wendy, thank you for asking me that. The interesting thing is that everything looked fine from the outside. So every time I went to my doctor he would say, “You’re healing nicely. Everything looks great.” And I’m like, “Well, this is unusual.” I was leaking on myself. I couldn’t sit to breastfeed. I have pressure in my pelvis, and sexual intimacy was impossible even couple of months later. And I kept going back to him, he kept saying, “Listen, everything is healing. You just need more time, more time, more time.” And I did give it more time until I realized, “Listen, I can’t even breastfeed. I can’t even sit. I can’t even walk. There is something very wrong.”

Isa Herrera: And now I know what happened. I had actually had an internal tear of my vaginal wall, but because he couldn’t see it and because they don’t examine the pelvic floor muscles and many OB-GYNs and women’s health practitioners are not taught how to evaluate and examine these muscles, he had no idea. So here I am suffering, I keep thinking something is wrong with me, because he kept telling me that everything looked beautiful and perfect from the outside, but I was a total mess.

Isa Herrera: So these are some of the common symptoms that women have. Leaking, pelvic organ prolapse, which I had, scar pain, internal scar pain on the muscles, inability to sit, pain with urination. Those are some of the common symptoms.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. I know so many girlfriends, they’ve had a baby and then their first one was fine and the second one they kind of fell apart, and like they’re sneezing or laugh and they urinate a little bit and just have these really uncomfortable symptoms that when you go to your doctor there’s really no information or education or… there’s not a medication or a surgery. Like there’s no options.

Isa Herrera: Yeah, and that’s all true. And the thing is, typically in other countries, women who have babies in the postpartum period, they’ll get pelvic education. They’re taught, they’re evaluated by a physical therapist. But in the US there’s nothing like that. You’ll have a baby. You get your six week checkups and it’s like, hasta la vista baby,” you’re not seen again. You know, you have to die to go back.

Wendy Myers: Like, bye.

Isa Herrera: Bye. See you. Go do kegels. That’s the number one thing. Go do kegels, and the majority of women don’t know how to do kegels. So I think that because a lot of women know that it’s… it’s common, right? A lot of women experience these issues, we sought to think that that’s just the way things are. There is no way to change them. And we start to think, because it’s common, it’s normal, but actually it’s not. Just because these issues are common, these symptoms are common, they’re not normal and there are natural ways to bring yourself back to vitality. Especially after the second baby, that’s even harder.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. Yeah, because you’re just kind of stretching everything out again. And I was surprised how weak I became when I was pregnant. And I feel really lucky though, I’d been doing pilates since I was 25 and they’re always talking about tightening your pelvic floor muscles and the whole thing is surrounding tightening up your stomach muscles and your pelvic floor muscles. So I was very aware of that but I couldn’t work out when I was pregnant. And so everything just, I fell to pieces. And then the minute I healed up after pregnancy, I started working out again and one of my pelvic floor muscles got pulled and it just… It took two years of physical therapy to get to where I could walk again. So I identify with women that have problems because you have these… Well, talk about that. Like what happens with pregnancy where everything is just completely relaxing and almost like all your muscles atrophy and you’re much more prone to injury?

Isa Herrera: It’s true. And the thing is that these issues, I mean, once a pregnant woman starts to experience pelvic floor dysfunction and starts to get these symptoms, they don’t miraculously go away in the postpartum period, the woman is already compromised. So I think in pregnancy, this perinatal education is absolutely critical and showing women how to protect their muscles so they bounce back quicker. And also showing women what positions to labor in so they don’t put themselves at a risk for an orthopedic injury, which happens a lot.

Isa Herrera: I’ve treated so much obstetrical trauma over the last decade, is absolutely insane. So I think in pregnancy we need to almost be aware, and even before pregnancy, I believe that women should be preparing. So it’s like me. Like I didn’t think about it, but I should have been thinking about it. Pre-pregnancy preparation and then doing sensible workout during pregnancy so that you can go through the marathon of labor and delivery, which by the way, that’s a crazy marathon-

Wendy Myers: You need to be fit to do that.

Isa Herrera: You need to be fit for that. Yeah.

Wendy Myers: So this is not only mothers that are dealing with this, of course women of all walks of life can have pelvic floor issues, but like as a new mom, like how can women protect their pelvic floor from getting damaged or having issues down there?

Isa Herrera: I think as a new mom, the main thing that I see is women getting really too… going too quickly into regular physical activity, doing too much too soon, especially the impact exercises like running, and then because the pelvic floor muscles have a stability function, they stabilize the pelvis, but because a baby just came out of your pelvis, you’re probably unstable. So you have to train the pelvic floor muscles a way to hold you together. So as a young mother not lifting anything heavier than the baby, which by the way, individuals look at me, they’re like, “What! You’re like what? From the 50s?” I’m like, “No, I am just telling you that if you do that, you’re going to have some serious issues later on and then I have to pick this all up afterwards.”

Isa Herrera: I think that’s important. I think if a woman has had a cesarean birth, really important that she rehab her muscles also in the postpartum period, but not by doing crunches. Making sure that they take care of the separation, the abdominal separation, that frequently happens in pregnancy and in the postpartum period. And by the way, I see diastasis recti separation, which is the abdominal separation, in young women as well because they have very bad body mechanics, that exasperates and separates. Or they’re doing too many crunches.

Isa Herrera: So I would say the first thing is don’t do crunches. Be really aware of how you’re carrying the baby. Make sure that you are sitting really tall, that you’re not slouching into your pelvis, and to make sure to pay attention if there’s pain in the body and to avoid the things that give you pain of course. Sometimes we become very stoic as new moms and we’re like, “Oh no, we’re just going to roll through this and our body is going to feel better and we’re going to be miraculously healed and we compound the injury.”

Isa Herrera: So if you had an injury pre-pregnancy and then you were put in a position, a labor position that exasperated that injury, in the postpartum period, you have to do some sort of rehabilitation. And that doesn’t mean that you have to go out and do two years of PT. By the way, I know women who’ve been in PT for two years. I think the most important thing is to have a very well curated self-care program that you can do on your own, if that makes sense to you. Because a lot of new moms are really busy, a lot of professional women are really busy, they don’t have time to be going back and forth to these appointments.

Isa Herrera: So once you get the foundational information and how you can program, that gives you the results that you’re seeking.

Wendy Myers: Yeah, I made a mistake in like kind of overestimating my fitness level, which I think a lot of women do when they’ve been fit their whole life and then they get pregnant. And I really couldn’t work out very much because I got hot or I would get really nauseated, so that kind of put the kibosh on any kind of workouts I was doing. And then as soon as I got the green light from the doctor, “You can work out now,” I really wasn’t doing much. I just did like some like TV 30 minute Yoga, not a big deal, but I destroyed my pelvic floor doing that. It was too much too soon, and that led into two years of physical therapy. Like I literally couldn’t walk for more than 10 minutes because of my injury.

Wendy Myers: So I really identify with this. Like you have to be really, really careful when you’re… After you have a baby, don’t push it. Isn’t it true that relaxing the hormone, they kind of relaxes all of your muscles and your pelvis. Takes a year, 18 months to really kind of-

Isa Herrera: Absolutely.

Wendy Myers: Everything just went… to kind of go back to how you were before..

Isa Herrera: Yeah, that’s so good. And I’m glad that you brought this up about the six week checkup because one of the things that makes me absolutely nuts and I know like I think every single OB-GYN in New York City, and I’m always talking to them, they’re like, “Leave me alone,” is do not give the green light to a new mom unless you’ve evaluated her pelvic floor because you have no idea what is going on in there. And if you can’t do that, then get her to a referral. Get her to someone who can actually help her. Because I think sometimes in that six week checkup there’s two questions. What do you want for birth control? And then the other one is, how do you feel? Great. Go out and do what you were doing before, without taking into consideration the changes in the hormonal changes that are happening in a new mom’s body.

Isa Herrera: And by the way, this also happens with these hormonal changes in older women. Why would they start to leak when they hit menopause? And they need more power in the pelvis. So it’s really interesting that the hormones play a big part in pelvic health, but then you also have to start to workout and really take care of your body and listen to your body. Like I wasn’t listening to my body either. I was just like, “Now I’m going to walk. I’m going to put my baby on.” And I really believe that’s how I developed my prolapse.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about cesarean births. So do women who have cesarean births, are they also prone to have pelvic issues?

Isa Herrera: That’s a great question because I think in New York City there’s a high cesarean rate. So I think I treated thousands of women with cesareans. And the interesting thing is that, yes, we have the nine months of pregnancy, there’s a lot of pressure on the pelvic floor, but with a cesarean, they don’t cut through the abdominal muscles, but they cut through the fascial system of the abdominals. And the thing is that that system is connected to the pelvic floor.

Isa Herrera: So not only are you compromised because of the pregnancy, but now you have a cut in the fascial system and now you have scar tissue that you have to deal with. So women who have cesareans say, “Oh, I’m always perfect down there, but I… ” And this has been my experience, many of those women tend to experience a painful intercourse after a cesarean birth because their muscles are all gripped, very gripped and very tight developing trigger points. And then the pelvic floor muscles and the abdominals, they love each other. It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And the abdominals are like pissed off, and so the pelvic floor just response as a protective spasm or as a protective guarding.

Isa Herrera: And so they tend to be very tight and then they go out and they do more kegels or they do more athletic activities, and then it becomes to the point where even their intimacy suffers and even their orgasms suffer.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so, you mentioned menopausal women. What are some of the issues that you see happen specifically in women that are hitting perimenopause and menopause and what’s going on with their pelvic floors?

Isa Herrera: That’s good. That’s good, because I think that we forget the divine beautiful older women. 50% of older women will experience a pelvic organ prolapse. That’s one out of two. That’s a very high percentage. A lot of them have, as their hormones change, sometimes they have some laxity in the tissue or sometimes they have some dryness in the tissue contributing to either leaking or painful intercourse or a combination of very… where they have trifecta, prolapse, leaking and painful intimacy.

Isa Herrera: So in the perimenopausal and menopausal stage, as we’re going through this dynamic change, we have to pay even more attention to our pelvic floor and have a very well curated program, self-care program, even if nothing has happened and you feel perfectly fine down there. Because the statistics show that 50% of older women leak, we have 49% of women with incontinence. One out of three with chronic sexual pain. I can say that this would be a sort of an epidemic.

Wendy Myers: That’s shocking. That is absolutely shocking. I didn’t know that.

Isa Herrera: Yeah, it is shocking. And it breaks my heart when they come to the center and they’re so far gone and now they’re wearing diapers or they’re stuck with their pantyliners, and when they go for their checkups, the doctors are not having this deep conversation with them, like, okay, what can you do to restore the vaginal tissues? What kind of exercises should you be doing? That’s why I’m really keen on physicians knowing how to care and being educated about pelvic floor therapy. I’m not saying you have to treat it, but you need to know what’s going on so you can educate and make an informed referral if you need to.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so tell us, what is organ prolapse? What is that exactly?

Isa Herrera: Yeah. So the pelvic floor muscles are like a basket, I call the basket of your being. They’re like this beautiful, dynamic, gorgeous, because to me, I’m fascinated with these muscles, and they hold things. They hold us up, they hold uterus, they hold the bladder, they hold the intestines, and they hold the rectum. And when these muscles lose their tone, they lose their elasticity, or they’ve been injured, sometimes the muscles become weak or too tight or combination of both and these organs can drop into the vagina or outside the vagina.

Isa Herrera: And so when a woman goes for her checkup, all MDs need to be screening for pelvic organ prolapse and it’s not that difficult to screen for it. It can be learned in under a minute. So it’s all about, how do we change the dynamics of how women’s healthcare is being performed by the clinician and the woman being educated with shows like this, like your podcast. So thank you for having me on because this is really incredible. How does she bring this conversation into the doctor’s visit so that everybody is working together to make her like this queen, this beautiful goddess, but she deserves this. No woman deserves to be suffering with these kinds of issues when we know that the research shows that you can heal organically and naturally through exercise, massage, yoga, meditation, you name it.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And the solutions are relatively simple. This is not rocket science, just people just don’t know and the doctors don’t know, so I love that you provide such amazing solutions for women. So talk about one of the solutions, so Kegel exercises. What are those and can women be doing those at home?

Isa Herrera: Yeah. Okay. That’s a great question because there’s so much Kegel controversy. I’m actually going to be covering this in my master class. Kegels are fantastic exercises. In the moment I think in the media and social media, you hear, “Oh, don’t do kegels.” I think the moment that we tell women not to do kegels is the moment that we disempower her. We say, “Don’t do this vital exercise is going to bring you amazing orgasms and connection and you’re going to be able to move freely.”

Isa Herrera: So a Kegel is a deep contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, but it also incorporates a lift. So it’s an inward and then an upward lift as you exhale. And it’s just like doing a bicep curl, except that you’re doing vagina curls. And so is the squeeze in and out. The problem is that many women start to believe that they fail and I think they fail for a number of reasons.

Isa Herrera: One, a lot of women are not candidates for Kegels and shouldn’t be doing them, especially if there’s an issue where the pelvic floor is too tight, there’s scar tissue or there’s painful intercourse. That’s definitely a sign that your muscles are already contracted, so think about that. If your muscles are already tight and you have an injury and it hurts, are you going to go around doing more exercises? That doesn’t make any sense. You need to be doing more of a relaxation exercise with them.

Isa Herrera: So kegels are amazing. There’s not only one type of kegel, I teach over 25 different types of kegels in my program. Sometimes as women, we connect from our vaginas, so we need to reconnect to these muscles and communicate with them. So sometimes you may need to put a Yoni egg inside or you may need to put a finger inside because we need to increase our proprioceptive input, like we need to understand what’s going on down there. But so many of us haven’t even been taught the anatomy, let alone how to test to see if you’re doing a proper kegel.

Isa Herrera: And so these are the things that I think are missing in women’s healthcare today. And with programs like this and my program and bringing the information out there, I think women are getting smarter, they’re like, “Oh, okay. Am I a candidate for a kegel? Should I be doing them?” And don’t do the same old, same old, right? It’s like what Albert Einstein says. You do the same thing over and over again and you expect different dynamic results. That’s the meaning of insanity.

Wendy Myers: Yes. Yeah. And I think it’s so important because with the statistics that you talked about, like 50% of women, older women, or women in menopause, have some form of vaginal dysfunction. We need to be learning this information to take care of our vajayjays and prevent these things because they’re easily preventable.

Isa Herrera: I think so too. And that’s one of the things that is my mission. I have a big mission. I want to help 1 million women heal from pelvic floor dysfunction. Is something that I do. Every year, I do this big huge broadcasts. I invite everyone to attend. I have online programs. Because I think that this information needs to be easily, easily accessible. I just think that the information needs to be out there, but there’s so much misinformation is how do you cut through the noise and how do you listen?

Isa Herrera: Like there’s people who do my work, who have no business even making a recommendation. So really try to partner yourself off with somebody who knows the work. It’s like everything else. You want to do a good detox? They go to you because this is your specialty. You want to know about pelvic floor? Align yourself with someone who’s really very well educated and understands the nuances and how to train the pelvic floor muscles.

Wendy Myers: Yeah, and so let’s talk about kind of the results from doing kegels. So when you do the right kind of kegels for you, what kind of benefits can someone enjoy?

Isa Herrera: Oh, it’s interesting. I just put a little Instagram post on this. It was like 10 but I won’t go through all of them. I think one of the main things is circulation. I think circulation, as you know, is critical for any body part, but for the pelvic floor more so because it helps us to increase sensation. It helps us stop leaking, reduce frequent bathroom trips. Some women’s lives are being ruined because they’re just constantly peeing. It helps reduce the risk of organ prolapse, the discomfort of that. It helps with amazing orgasms. It helps with the intensity of orgasms. It helps with movement, because they play a big part in stabilizing the pelvis and the lumbar spine.

Isa Herrera: So if you want to play tennis, if you want to run, whatever, you know there’s so many things right now out there that you can do, then you got to be thinking that, what is the weakest link in the body? And if it’s your pelvic floor that you need to train that, so you end up peeing while you’re playing tennis or while you’re lifting weights at the gym. And some women think that that’s actually normal. That’s a normal response, you know, peeing on yourself in your pants when you’re lifting weights.

Isa Herrera: And I’m going to tell you right now, that is not normal. There are some slogans that say, “Work as hard as you can until you pee on yourself.” I’m like, “Really? That’s the best they got for us?”

Wendy Myers: Depends are big business.

Isa Herrera: Big, huge, billion dollar industry. So why would an industry that’s really overtaken older women’s lives, and by the way, they’re very expensive. It’s probably less expensive to join something like my program than to buy a whole month or a whole year of Depends or pantyliners.

Wendy Myers: Yeah, I know. One time I got sent something in the mail, I guess I reached a certain age demographic and I got sent two free Depends on the mail, like a sample. Like, it’s that time for you. I could not believe it. I was like that-

Isa Herrera: It’s insane. It’s insane. And the thing is, I was at the CVS, I don’t know what I was getting, and I was like… I went across the incontinence aisle or they call it the incontinence aisle, and I was flabbergasted at the prices. I had no idea how expensive these things are, like, “Wow, all this money going down the drain for something that can be treated holistically and naturally with exercise and the women are not being guided?” Because I don’t believe in, “I’ll guide you and I’ll take you where you need to be,” but ultimately you’re the one that has to have the control over your own destiny and your own body.

Isa Herrera: So I’m all about partnership healthcare , so I’m very like, “No, you need to learn how to do this on your own.” And in my clinic on Madison Avenue, I used to tell people, “You have six visits to get this.” People used to freak out on me, and I’m like, “And I’m doing this for your own good. I really am.” I know it may seem harsh but it was the only way that I can be really strict and tell women, “No, you need to care for this. You need to understand this. You need to go home and work on your sensual or vajayjay self-care five minutes a day. It doesn’t take that long once you know what to do.” Sometimes if you’re severely injured like the way you were, like I was working on myself for an hour to an hour and a half a day, when I was going through my injury.

Wendy Myers: Yeah, I was too. It was just, when you have an injury down there, anywhere on your pelvic floor, I mean you can’t do a lot. You can’t like bend over and pick up a weight. I couldn’t walk for more than 10 minutes. I couldn’t sit. It’s just agonizing. It really takes over your entire life. And that’s why I was desperate. I went to physical therapy three times a week for a couple of years. I was desperate for a solution.

Isa Herrera: No, and it’s true. And the thing is, that’s the way to do it though, right? You really need to go to somebody who knows how to take care of you, who’s going to show you how to care for yourself for the long-run, after you’ve recovered too. I call like a maintenance program. So I’m glad that you got the help that you did because we’re having this conversation now, right?

Wendy Myers: Exactly.

Isa Herrera: It’s really interesting because I do a lot of podcasts and video and audio stuff, and I can always tell who’s on the other side. Have they been through something? Is it like, just have Isa because she’s like the hot thing and let’s get on the show.

Wendy Myers: No, but women need to hear this information because there’s so many women that are dealing with urinary incontinence. And so what kind of things can women do to tame their bladder or tone their sphincter to stop urinary incontinence?

Isa Herrera: I think that’s a really great question. I think that with urinary incontinence, one of the things that I find is that women stop drinking water. That is the kiss of death for the pelvic floor as it is for the entire body. But when you don’t drink water, the bladder gets pissed off and it becomes irritated, the lining of the bladder becomes irritated, and it gives you more urge. So you get frequent urination. And then with the frequent urination, the muscles become tense and it becomes the trigger points.

Isa Herrera: So I think if you’re leaking, women say, “Oh no, I’m leaking. I can’t drink water. No way because I’m going to leak more.” I’m going to tell you right now, you’re going to leak less. You will leak less. I think one of the other big things that I really like is something called a pelvic brace, which I think is pretty phenomenal. I teach this in my programs where a woman does a gentle abdominal contraction where she brings the belly button in and up, not just back because if you squeeze your abdominal muscles back, you’re going to increase too much downward pressure.

Isa Herrera: So it has to be, in and up towards the heart and a baby kegel when you cough, sneeze, laugh, lift. And that’s a protective mechanism for the pelvic floor. So that’s why things that are like… I think sitting is the new smoking for the pelvic floor. Excessive sitting creates a lot of weakness in the pelvic floor, also trigger points, and sitting in really PEP posture and how you put ergonomics at your office or at home can also make the muscles too tight and weak, because we think that everything is loose.

Isa Herrera: But what I find is that a lot of women are too tight because of stress, anxiety, overdoing it, improper body mechanics, sitting too long. And so those are the types of women that then what do they do? They do more kegels. But in essence they should be doing the reverse, the reverse kegel, and opening and relaxing and massaging until they come back into balance and then they can strengthen. Because like everything in our bodies, we want homeostasis, we want balance. And it’s the exact same thing with the pelvic floor muscles. They have to be balanced. Tighter is not better. And that’s something else that will lose down there and then they start to grip too much. So tighter is not better.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And also I’m sure that your stomach strength plays a big role in your ability to stabilize yourself as well, stabilize not only on your pelvic muscles, but your lower back and it’s all tied together. So if you have a weak stomach, you can have problems in that region also.

Isa Herrera: Yeah. And then you can have a weak stomach and then you can have scar tissue in your tummy, and then you can also have trigger points. So what are we going to do? They do traditional crunches. And for me, traditional crunches, one hour bell bottoms, it is 70s. Like I don’t teach it. I don’t think it’s effective, I don’t think it’s functional. When I teach core, I teach a crunchless core where I work at really deep muscles and then incorporate some planks and side planks and then incorporate some toe taps, whatever it is, but I don’t use the crunch because I assume everybody has a diastasis recti separation. And when you do a regular crunch, that’s going to open you up and it’s going to open up the separation and then it’s going to give you more symptoms because abdominal separation it’s been correlated with low back pain, leaking, pelvic organ prolapse, sexual pain. And it makes sense, right?

Isa Herrera: It holds you together. And if it’s weak, then it’s sending messages to the pelvic floor too. So then women are highly compromised, which is why I always start with the crunches core work.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. That happened to my girlfriend. She had the diastasis recti separation and she just worked out like a mad woman when she was pregnant and she was probably doing the crunches, which led to that when she was pregnant.

Isa Herrera: Yeah. And the thing is afterwards, it’s more difficult to close the gap up because of that relaxing hormone. Everything is sort of like loosey goosey and so women get very upset and there’s terms like the mummy tummy or the mummy pooch, which I hate, but these things can be fixed with a postpartum belt, you’re buying correctly, you do the right crunches. So for women who are looking to strengthen their core, who also have pelvic floor dysfunction, I say start with a no crunch core program. And I feature those in my online programs, but I can’t stand it when I see women doing 10,000 crunches and they see the little alien pop out-

Wendy Myers: Yeah.

Isa Herrera: You know that little quick stuff? That’s what I’m saying. If you see that, that means you have a diastasis recti separation. you can even be herniated. That’s the last thing we want is a herniation. So we want to be thinking what are the messages that our bodies are subtly telling us and sometimes just hitting us over the head with? And then how do we fix that and how do we navigate our own boat, right? How do we become the captains of our own healthcare? At the end of the day, I think that’s where we have to go. The woman has to become the leader of her healthcare and really needs to be very well educated about what’s happening with her body.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. I felt bad for my friend that had the diastasis rectus separation in her stomach muscles because her doctor said the only way to fix it was with surgery, so the little muscle fascia back up and that’s just the options women are getting at their doctors.

Isa Herrera: And it’s so true, actually there’s so many corrections. They need it to then be handled in a different way with rolling and a whole bunch of other techniques that I use, but the thing is diastasis recti separation, the first line of defense is conservative therapy. And sometimes the fascia is too tight in the vagina, in the vajayjay.

Isa Herrera: The connective tissue, the linea alba, also becomes… it doesn’t function property to re-adjust itself. So many times I have women work internally and on their abdominals simultaneously to close up the gap because of that deep connection through the fascial system. So we don’t only want to work through muscle, we want to work through nerve, we want to work through connective tissue, we want to work through blood supply, we want to work through the energetics, we want to be thinking about ourselves in our totality not just like one area-

Wendy Myers: Yeah. On every level. On every level. Yeah. And so let’s talk about pelvic floor and the digestion connection. So how does poor pelvic floor health then translate into digestive issues?

Isa Herrera: That’s a great question. The thing with digestion issues, if there’s scar tissue in the abdominals, if your abdominal… And when I talk about the pelvic floor, I want to just define it. It’s from the bottom of the ribs all the way to the top of your hips. So we’re talking about the whole area and we’re just not talking about the vagina.

Isa Herrera: So when we talk about digestion, sometimes if the pelvic floor muscles are too tight, women have poor ability to go to the bathroom and do number two, and they’re heavily constipated. And that’s because the pelvic floor muscles have to be balanced and supple and be able to relax in order for urination and defecation to occur. So that’s the main issue there with digestion, that the pelvic floor muscles if they’re too tight, you’re going to get constipated or you’re going to feel like you can’t evacuate completely, and then you push, and then we create a sequella where we put ourselves at risk for a rectal prolapse in conjunction because of the pushing. So women think, “Oh, I have poor digestion,” yes, you must look at your diet, but then go a little bit further and say, “Hey, what’s going on with my pelvic floor? Can I bring that into the picture as well?”

Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s so key because I think, there are so many women out there who are dealing with constipation or that can even lead to hemorrhoids when they’re pushing or they have this weakness in that area and it’s totally solvable. And so let’s talk about the connection between toxicity and pelvic floor dysfunction.

Isa Herrera: Well, that’s a great question. That’s a loaded question. There’s a catch hole diagnoses right now called pelvic floor congestion, pelvic congestion. Have you heard of this, Wendy?

Wendy Myers: No, I haven’t.

Isa Herrera: Okay. It’s a catch hole. They don’t know what’s wrong with you, you’re congested. Now the pelvic floor muscles are highly innovated and they have a huge amount of lymphatics and circulation. So many times, and there’s yeast and there’s candida and there’s a whole sequelae of things, many times when there’s high levels of toxins in the body, the pelvic floor muscles will become more constricted. They will feel more, and this is my experience, they will feel loss of sensation. You will feel like something is just not right, but you can’t put your finger on it.

Isa Herrera: So I think toxicity and… A good detoxification program, and I do recommend this for my women, sometimes helps with the pelvic floor healing because we have to hit the healing like you said, from all aspects, not just one thing.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely see that work because you have so many lymph nodes in the pelvic area and if your lymph is stagnant, where you have a lot of toxins and they just are stuck in your lymphatic tissue and they just can’t come out, that’ll cause problems. And there’s a lot of metals like aluminum and mercury that cause numbness and tingling that can affect the nerves in the pelvic floor. And there’s a lot of like pesticides that contribute to endometriosis and other heavy metals that affect your sex hormones and interfere in that. So it can definitely complicate any physical issues that you’re having in the pelvic region.

Wendy Myers: So you have so many educational materials and information about caring for your pelvic floor. So how can women take back control of their pelvic health?

Isa Herrera: Well, I think the first thing that they should do, they should really attend the Masterclass. Because there I give you the absolute best of the best. So that we’ll go to pelvicpainrelief.comfriends/wendy. I gave you your own thing. Because we needed to keep it simple. So that’s really super important. Now on my website, I have a bunch of free downloads. Pelvicpainrelief.com, you can go there too. But I think the Masterclass, it’s really important. That’s when I really break it down for everybody and then those who want to go deeper, then I’m going to invite them to join me in my Female Pelvic Alchemy Program that I host once a year. And that’s when I personally take your hand and walk you down the yellow brick road of pelvic happiness.

Wendy Myers: Right. She’s so funny. Yeah, and this is so important. I think this is just information that every woman needs to know because we all are, we all need to… Just like a workout with your body, lifting weights or playing tennis or whatever you’re doing, you have to tend to those muscles also. And like a traditional workout doesn’t tend to that. That’s why I like pilates because you’re constantly working your pelvic muscles and pelvic floors are really focused on that and muscles that you don’t workout on a traditional workouts. But short of that, there’s so many things that you can do to help your pelvic floor and prevent symptoms and stop the ones you’re dealing with right now.

Isa Herrera: Yeah, and I would agree. I think the first line of defense before anybody does surgery, before anybody considers taking any kind of pill, please do conservative natural therapy first because it works and is actually recommended by many different organizations. And I think that sometimes women are not given that information. And so I think natural therapy first, you do that, come to the Masterclass, I invite everybody to attend, and then you just figure out where you want to go from there, what is your path?

Isa Herrera: And it’s better to prevent things before they go crazy, because women come to see me when it’s just like… I have one day sign up for the Masterclass I have, where you can submit a question. I answer every single question. And it is amazing the questions that I’m getting and the suffering that’s out there, and women just don’t know, you know, they don’t know.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And then I think any time that a doctor recommends a surgery for you, I think you should always get a second opinion and always look for other means to go about preventing that surgery. Say if it’s for prolapse or removing your uterus or having surgery to help your stomach muscles sewn back together or what have you, because surgeries go wrong. People get infections, they have nerve damage, so there’s not some guarantee that this surgery is automatically going to fix the problem.

Isa Herrera: Yeah, I would agree with you there. I mean, there is no magic pill. There’s the work and the work is not complicated and once you know what to do, it doesn’t take a whole bunch of hours a day to do this, but it’s really important that we understand that there is no magic pill. The magic pill is you awakening your inner healer, your inner guru, and then taking charge of your own medical care.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. Yeah, and so what kind of things are women going to learn in your Masterclass? What are the topics that are covered?

Isa Herrera: Oh wow. There’s so many good topics. I’m still working on it, but the topics are, the different kinds of things that can happen in the belly. I’m going to go over that very quickly. I’m going to talk about the kegel controversy. I’m going to show everybody how to do a Kegel correctly as the way it’s been indicated. I also talk about different kinds of preventative measures that they should be taking to avoid this in the first place. Because what is it? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? So I’m all about that first.

Isa Herrera: And then my Q and A’s, get a cup of tea, get a glass of wine, because I don’t leave until every question is answered. And I do immediate Hot Seats. And during the Q and A, I think that’s really fantastic. Sometimes I’ll go for an hour and a half. I’ll go until I can’t go anymore. And I think this information that I’m giving is not readily available because I say, “Okay, what can I give this different but can bring profound results very quickly?”

Wendy Myers: Yeah. And I love that Kegel is also helping women have orgasm and intensifying orgasms. Because a lot of women they struggle in that department, and they just need to, again, strengthen those muscles down there if they expect their lady parts to work properly.

Isa Herrera: Absolutely. There’s no such thing as going to the gym. And my girlfriend goes to the gym for an hour and a half. I’m like, “What the hell are you doing there? It’s just like too long.” And I say, “Okay, are you doing your pelvic exercises? Are you… ” She goes, “Nope, I don’t even think about that area.” I’m like, “Well, maybe you should give 10 minutes to a proper stretching program so that we can balance out the pelvic floor.” And it was really surprising because she’s like a healer, very well known healer, and yet she goes, “No, I don’t think about that.” And I was like, “How interesting is that?”

Wendy Myers: Yeah. I know some women, they strengthen while they’re doing their leg squats and they’re doing their biceps and they’re doing their stomach crunches and doing their lat pull-downs, and whatnot. But you’ve got to hold up all of your organs and your vajayjay and your rectum. Like that’s priority, I think.

Isa Herrera: I think so. And the thing is that you can incorporate it into your regular exercises too, it doesn’t have to be separated. You just have to have the right guy. I do talk a lot about that during the Q and A of the Masterclass. I give a foundational program and then after that I go deeper depending on what the questions that come up. And I do like Hot Seat Healings, which are always a lot of fun. And then there, bring a pencil because when I say something you may want to write what I say down, you may want to have this information.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. I always think of whenever I’m doing any kind of exercise, I’m walking, I’m holding in my pelvic floor, I’m holding in my stomach, like holding it in and up a little bit, and in holding all that in, the whole time you’re working out. So it’s like you said, you can kind of incorporate that into what you’re already doing. But I am sure you have so many different tips in this Masterclass, so I highly recommend anyone that is interested in this and prevention, go to…

Isa Herrera: Pelvicpainrelief.com/wendy.

Wendy Myers: Yes. And go there and check it out. Isa, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there any parting words or anything else we’ve left out of the conversation that you want to share?

Isa Herrera: The only thing that I will share is that we have more control than we think around health and that not to be afraid because fear and fear of failures, I think that stops people and women from doing the work that they need to. Sometimes like Alice in Wonderland, we must go through the rabbit hole in order to come into the light. And to know that you hold the key to your own healing, that you’re a healer and a guru, and that you navigate the boat, and not to look.. We can’t outsource our health anymore. I think it’s a long time that it just needs to stop. I think that’s my parting words.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. We have consultants for our health. I look to doctors or functional medical practitioners as consultants to give me options, but these days, they just don’t have time for you. They don’t have enough time to spend with you to answer all of your questions, they usually get like irritated with you because they have their next patient in five minutes, and so you really have to arm yourself with knowledge and learn all this stuff or… You just can’t leave it up to somebody else. No one’s going to care about your health as much as you do.

Wendy Myers: Well, Isa, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. And everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to the Myers Detox Podcast where we give you all kinds of solutions for women’s health, detoxification, detox protocols and supplements and everything related to healthcare, alternative healthcare, and heavy metal and chemical detoxification.

Wendy Myers: Thanks so much for tuning in. It’s my pleasure to serve you and help to educate you about your health.

Isa Herrera: Thank you so much, Wendy. I had an amazing time-

Wendy Myers: Yes. I did too.

Isa Herrera: Thank you for bringing this information. Thank you.

Wendy Myers: Yeah. It was so fun. It’s always so much fun talking to you.

Isa Herrera: Yeah. It’s always good to talk to you too. Thank you.

Wendy Myers: Thank you so much. Everyone thanks for tuning in and I’ll talk to you guys next week.