What Are Kegels? at kegeltoner.com

Traditional Kegel Exercises Are Not Enough

The traditional kegel exercise is a muscle squeeze of the pelvic floor muscles. Unfortunately, it is what most doctors tell their patients to do and it is ineffective and can even make things worse since many women squeeze the abdominal muscles instead.

The following is an introduction from an interesting article by Dr. John Perry. He briefly describes the original invention of Dr. Arnold Kegel and how today a "kegel exercise" is a far cry from what Dr. Kegel actually did to help his patients. The KegelMaster 2000 is a type of biofeedback device as is mentioned below, since the user can feel and see the device close during each contraction. Beyond that, the KegelMaster 2000 is the only device that enables you to gradually increase the resistance over time so that you know your muscles are growing stronger and more tone.

You can use the following link if you would like to read the rest of this article and learn more. (http://www.incontinet.com/articles/art_urin/20yearbf.htm).

Historical Perspective - The Work of Arnold Kegel, MD

The entire field of pelvic muscle rehabilitation in the treatment of urinary incontinence has its origins in the work of a single physician, Dr. Arnold Kegel, a Obstetrician/ Gynecologist who practiced in the Los Angeles area starting in the 1940s. But Kegel did NOT invent the idea of using pelvic muscle exercises to cure urinary incontinence; that had already been suggested by Dr. Joshua Davies of New York City in 1932. Kegel's contribution was the invention of the world's first "biofeedback" device, about 1947.

His invention, the Kegel Perineometer (para-knee-om'-iter), consisted of an vaginal air-pressure cone or chamber connected by an air tube to an air-pressure gauge whose dial was calibrated in millimeters of mercury. The device enabled a woman (and her doctor-guide) to observe the strength and duration of her pelvic muscle contractions in order to learn truly effective exercise. (For a picture of the device, see Fig. 2 in the essay "On Sensor Size".) Over his career Kegel claimed to be successful in eliminating incontinence in 93% of some 3,000 patients. All of his patients used his biofeedback device on a twice or thrice-daily basis.

Over the years Kegel's exercises were described in nursing articles and passed down by word of mouth, but his perineometer device was never marketed effectively and his widow finally stopped selling them in 1979. Unfortunately, the success rate without biofeedback for so-called Kegel Exercises alone (or mere "verbal instruction alone") is only about 50% reduction in symptoms (leaks), and only mild and moderate cases can be helped at all without biofeedback. The history of this appropriation of his method without his device is described in an essay The Bastardization of Dr. Kegel's Exercises, by John Perry and Lesley Hullett (now Perry).

Dr. Kegel's original Kegel Perineometer fron the 1940s.