Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Kegels

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

No matter the body parts, strengthening your pelvic muscles is generally good for you. But who were they named after, and most importantly, who introduced them? Dr. Sydnee and Justin go on a journey through the Kegel's medical history and naming conventions.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, this one is about some books. One, two, one, two, three, four.

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I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Sydney, what a pleasure it is to be here with you today. Justin, before we get started on this week's episode, I have like a brief follow-up on last week's episode. Okay. So, our list- That was again an episode about- Exploding teeth. Which as we said on the episode,

as far as science knew, or at least published searchable science on the internet, that kind of stopped happening in the like the 20s, except for maybe this one random thing, weird thing in the 60s. It was in the old days kind of thing. But like this doesn't really happen anymore. Well, well, science has been updated because.

Sydney McElroy's updating science. Well, me. So the sawbos. By virtue of our listeners. Yeah. I can't even list all of the listeners, and you didn't all say specifically if I should or not. So I'm not gonna name all of you, but you know who you are.

All of the emails I have received about people's teeth exploding. You gotta do this study, Sydney. I feel like we have found something that science has lost and we can share it with the world. So here is what I'm asking. First of all, let me just say in brief, other people since the 1920s

have had their teeth explode in their mouth very similarly. Toothache, hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts, pop, tooth explodes. Several people described to me the way tooth shards feel in their mouth, unpleasant. It always happened at the same time, which I thought was bizarre. Did you notice that? They all included a time

and it was all the exact same time. All the exact same time. Yeah, time and it was all the exact same time. All the exact same time? Yeah, all of them happened at the exact same time. That's not true. That would be really wild if it was. Every one was at 2.30. Every single one. And it's like a bizarre coincidence.

I can't with you. You're incorrigible. So, yes, people have had their teeth explode, and then there have, okay, also the one that happened in the 60s where the lady wrote in saying, I put my kid's teeth on the mantle and then they exploded after they had come out of my kid's mouth. This has happened to other people. That was the one that I was like, well, that didn't, oh, it did. Because at least unless you are all messing with me,

listeners, I had several emails, not as many as people who said their own tooth exploded in their mouth, but there were several emails from people saying that their children or friends' children, children that they knew lost teeth and they exploded after coming out of their mouths, whether they're on a table or a counter or whatever. That was actually well-meaning people hitting them

with a hammer to give you permission to throw them away. They were like, this is too weird that they're keeping them. I'm gonna smash them up with a hammer when they're not looking. Some people said they just found them split open the next day, other people heard the pop and went and found the tooth. Wild, wild, absolutely wild.

So anyway, the mystery lives on. All I am asking you. Well yeah, what were you asking people? Yeah, I wanna, man, I'm not a researcher. I'm a researcher in that I read about things. I'm not a researcher in that I typically don't try to like do studies and publish research. So I'm not promising you that anything actually-

You need someone else to do the actual work. No, I'm not asking that. You need a co-lead researcher. I am'm not asking that. You need a co-lead researcher. I am not asking for that, although if you want to. Yeah, you're saying like someone out there is a tooth researcher. Here's what I'm, here's all I'm asking. If you have also had a tooth explode,

or you know someone who has, or if teeth have been out of, you know, fallen out of a kid's mouth and then later exploded, please continue to email me with these stories. And if you are a tooth scientist that has been looking for a way to get your name out there, you wanna collaborate with Dr. McElroy on an incredible project.

We can heal the rift between medicine and dentistry once and for all. I know you're out there and I don't know, especially if you're like in studying to be a dentist, if you're somewhere in the educational process right now, I know that in medical school, it can be, depending on what you wanna do, really important to publish.

I didn't really under that much, but I know other people do. But if you are in a similar position where it might be important, I don't know. I think this is fascinating. Please continue. What's our email address? Sawbones at maximumfund.org. We passed our 10 year anniversary quite recently,

a decade of podcasting. The email has never changed. Please share this with me. Please, I don't know. I have no exact plan. I don't want to, by the way, I'm not trying to like sell a book. This isn't for monetary gain.

It's purely to contribute to the scientific knowledge of our world, our understanding of teeth. And so I probably do need somebody who knows something about teeth to help me with this process, but still thank you for sharing your tooth stories. That's it. I'm not looking to profit off of this. That says someday someone says the phrase,

and then I swear to God, her tooth Sidneyed right in her mouth. Like if it could be the Sydney effect or a Sydney tooth explosion. Okay, Justin, oh man, you just set this up so well. Here would be the problem with that. Okay. I have no expertise in teeth as we have covered.

I am not the one who first described this phenomenon and I am not the one who's had a tooth explode. So I think attaching my name to this, maybe ethically dicey. I'd like to talk about Kegel exercises. And you'll see why that was a perfect tie in. Have you heard of Kegels? Some people say Kegels.

When I looked up the pronunciation, it said Kegel, which is what I've always said. It's what I was taught, kegel. I know what kegels are. I think a lot of you probably do. I think if you- Would you like me to explain it to you? Yeah.

Go ahead, Justin, please. Actually, no, I changed my mind. Hey, this isn't a gendered thing. Everybody can do kegels. Yes, yes, this is, I wasn't about to say a gendered thing. I think... Oh, no, I just mean like it's okay for you to explain it

because nowadays we recommend kegels to everyone, not just... There was a time where only like cis women were told to do kegels. This is my understanding, is that kegels are when you flex the part that makes you pee so that you can continue to keep strong the part that makes you pee.

And it doesn't get kind of like floppy or anything. Like, I don't know how bad, not good. That's not a terrible description in all honesty. I mean, really. I'll take it. Yeah, like lit. That's not a terrible description in all honesty. I mean, really. I'll take it. Yeah, thank you. That's not a terrible compliment in case you're working with score.

So what you're trying, a Kegel exercise, I'll go ahead and explain what this is. I was gonna lead to that, but I'll go ahead and explain. A Kegel exercise is when you contract your pelvic floor muscles. Now, what are those you may be asking? Think about your pelvis. You know, you've probably seen like a pelvis and a skeleton.

Yeah. Okay, it's easy to imagine it's kind of a bowl. Yes. You think about it that way. The pelvic floor muscles are the ones that are in the bottom of the bowl. In sort of your perineum area. That's down there, right.

And it's like the whole bottom but it's the whole bottom. It attaches to the front and the back and the sides. It's kind of a diamond shape band of muscular tissue. Some people call it a hammock. And it- Oh, a banana hammock. I've heard of those, like the underwear. Depending on what you got going on down there, maybe. But it supports the pelvic organs,

whatever those may be for you. And kegel exercises are a way of isolating those muscles, which it can take some time to figure out what exactly you're contracting and then contracting and relaxing them. That's a kegel. The important thing is knowing which muscles those are. Right now, I like talking about this

because when anybody talks about kegels to me, I subconsciously start doing kegels. Oh, okay. And so I like this because what I am guessing, and please, you don't need to email and tell me about this one, but I bet some of you out there right now have been doing kegel exercises as I'm talking

because you're thinking about it. And I like that. I think that's an interesting phenomenon of humans. Do they work? I get emails a lot saying, do Kegels work? So I thought it was worth talking about what are Kegels, who came up with them, who are they named for, and is that different?

And do they actually work? Because what they tell you is that, what I will tell you as a physician, is that they help with urinary incontinence. So keep your feet on your shelf. They can strengthen your pelvic floor. They might make orgasms better. So let's talk about it.

So the idea of trying to consciously contract and relax that muscle is a very old one. Okay, so this predates, I'm gonna talk about like the modern history, especially in the West, of what are kegels, when did we adopt them, who studied them and whatnot. But I don't wanna give you the impression that we just came up with this back in the early 1900s.

The idea of trying to isolate and like use that muscle dates back to many ancient medical traditions. You'll find mentions of it in traditional Chinese medicine, you'll find the ancient Greeks and Roman physicians talking about these exercises, and some of the yogis in traditional Indian medicine would talk about exercises you can do for your pelvic floor. So like the idea that your spiritual, physical, sexual health was somehow tied to the health of this band of muscles, that is a very old idea.

But I wanna talk about what kind of starts. And if you look at the history of the word Kegel, you would think this history started in 1942. So Dr. Arnold Kegel, you can kind of guess where this is going. Ah, yes, was an American gynecologist who studied the consequences of having a weakened pelvic floor. So he observed in many, especially women, especially after they had had children, they would have some of the things that can happen when that band of tissue stretches as you

accommodate the growth of a uterus and then contracts again. Some of the things that can happen when that band of tissue stretches as you accommodate the growth of a uterus and then contracts again, it's weakened by that. That makes sense. Its ability to support those organs that are down there and its ability to keep... If you think about when you have to pee, there's pressure building up in your bladder. Now, obviously it is not purely a pressure system because otherwise enough pressure would build up and you would just start peeing on yourself.

Yes, and that does not happen anymore. When did that? When I was a baby. Oh, yes. But I don't anymore. I do it in the potty like a big boy. But that, so that pressure building up would just make you pee, but it's not just that.

We have muscles that help, that we can control that allow us to voluntarily hold it and then urinate at will. If the pelvic floor, which surrounds the urethra, the tube that the pee comes through, if that starts to get weaker, it is easier for pee to just sort of come through that tube when pressure builds up. And that can be when you have a full bladder or when you do something like cough or sneeze. So that's a really classic thing, right? For those of us who have had children, if you cough or sneeze, you might have a little bit of a leak. You also worry about when those muscles become weaker, your organs kind of dropping to an extent.

Things don't fall out, well, they don't fall out. That's dramatic. They don't fall out of your body. But there are things like prolapse, especially for those of us with vaginas, where your bladder can kind of start to fall down in, not literally in, but like intrude into that space, or like your uterus can start to fall down

into the vaginal canal. So there are other things that are, I mean, it sounds like what's the big deal if every once in a while a couple drips of pee come out, but it can be a lot more severe than that, and then there can be more complicated problems, right? So anyway, Dr. Kegel was studying all this and was interested in addressing those problems

through the use of pelvic floor exercises like any other muscle. You exercise a muscle, why can't we exercise our pelvic floor by squeezing it and releasing it and squeezing it and releasing it and exercising it and whatever and so he said, let's try that out and see if it changes things. He actually studied this for like 18 years

and published in 1942 a study that said, or that was called a non-surgical method of increasing the tone of sphincters and their supporting structures. And what he found was that after two to four weeks of these exercises, if you do them diligently, he said diligently. So you can't just sort of kind of do some kegels.

You gotta do them regularly. Then your symptoms tended to improve. And then he noted a little bonus. People who did these exercises regularly and saw these other symptoms improve also noted that they were having more frequent, more intense and more easily achievable orgasms. I thought you were gonna say bowel movements.

So imagine my surprise. You thought as a little bonus, they were having more intense bowel movements? More intense, easily achievable. But more intense and more frequent as a bonus? More frequent, more easily achievable. I mean, for a lot of people, that sounds pretty good. More intense, you're gonna have to explain to me why.

Sometimes you just wanna feel, you know? Sometimes you wanna feel something. I have had a lot of patients talk to me, worried that they weren't having, that their bowel movements weren't coming easily. Sure, got it, that's a problem. Not frequent enough? That they weren't frequent enough.

I have never had a patient come to me and say, chief complaint, my bowel movements aren't as intense as I would like them to be. Yeah, I mean, you want to feel like you got some work done. That's all. He also, in addition to talking about like the, sort of the, just the way that you can do these exercises, he created a perineometer. Perineometer.

Oh! Perineometer. Perineumometer, perineometer. Perineumometer, perineometer. The pressure inside the vaginal canal. So, I mean, it's just like any other cavity, if it's closed off, there's a certain amount of air pressure in it, right? So, any open space.

So, basically, this was a device where you could have a probe placed in the vaginal canal, and when you contracted these muscles, you could see what kind of pressure you're able to generate inside that cavity. And if you have lower pressures, then these exercises might help you. Because obviously you're not able to squeeze as much.

And then he said, you know what also might help at home is a resistance aid. Some sort of strengthening tool. Something to squeeze to know you're squeezing the right thing. The jade egg. Well, no, as we have talked about before, you know, I'm not going to like save that for later. Please do not place jade eggs in your vaginas. If you have them, they are jade eggs or your vaginas if you have them.

They are- The jade eggs or the vaginas. If you have either of those, keep them apart. You keep them separated at all times. Jade eggs are porous. We've talked about this on the show before, but just in case you haven't heard that, they are made of a porous material.

They can harbor bacteria, which can then cause infections. So, and there's no evidence that they do anything. So don't, please do not place jade eggs in your vagina. Thank you. Thank you for that. PSA. So anyway, he, so he said like, if you have, but if you do have something that you could like,

I mean, what he's really talking about is, it's like with any muscle, you have to know what muscle you're trying to isolate. It's like if you tried to wiggle your ears. No, that is what I've been saying you're thinking about the whole time. Because Cooper yesterday asked me if I could flare my nostrils.

And she was like, it's easy. And then she tried to describe it to me. And it's like, of course it didn't make any sense because you're not, I don't know, I couldn't make it happen. But trying to isolate that seems like a similar exercise. So he said, like, you could use something that would help you figure that out.

You're wiggling your ears now. Thank you. So he created Kegels, right? Well, he studied Kegels. He didn't name them Kegels. Oh, but he did. Dr. Arnold Kegel. But he was not the creator of Kegels. Oh, man. I'm gonna tell you who did create Kegels, but first we got to go to the billing department.

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Or just listen in as we cry over our bakers' soggy bombs. On MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, I realized something during the break, Sydney. I can only wiggle my ears by making it like the process of me wiggling my ears involves me getting a real stupid grin on my face. Like I really think it's cool that I'm wiggling my ears. Like we'll call it a poop eating grin if our show cussed. And so I can't do it without having a expression on my face like check this out. Cause I have to kind of like raise my eyebrows

and squint my eyes a little bit. So it looks like I think, oh yeah, here it goes. So I wiggled it. I like how you said if our show cussed as if our show the entity. Well, I will just say I cuss, right, in my life. I do too. Basabas doesn't.

No, that's okay. So the resurgence of the Kegel, while named and certainly verified by Dr. Arnold Kegel. And let me say, he did a lot of work specifically on an issue that largely plagues people with vaginas, people who bear children, people with uteruses. And any doctor who is willing to put time and effort into studying problems among that population of patients

deserves some applause, right? Because historically, people with vaginas have been pretty much excluded from the narrative. Generally speaking, people who identify as women are excluded from a lot of medical research. And so the idea that he was investigating a problem that wasn't a big deal to men- Is notable.

Is notable. So I don't wanna say like I'm. Is notable. It's notable. So I don't wanna say like I'm slamming Dr. Kegel. Like, and the fact that he even commented on like, hey, another benefit of this is that the women who he did the study on have better orgasms as if that's a good thing like that, which it is of course, but at the time, 1942. Yeah, and so I don't wanna say like this was a bad guy,

but he was not the first one to introduce the Kegel. That was the work of two women, Margaret Morris and Minnie Randall. Now, you may know the name Margaret Morris if you are someone who has studied dance or is familiar with the history of dance. I don't personally, so this is not a name that was recognizable to me, but as I read more about this person, I thought, oh, I bet this is a big name in the world of dance that I just don't know. Morris was a very famous British ballet dancer.

She was born in 1891 and danced from a very, very young age. I mean, from like seven, eight years old, was already on stage performing, and would go on to study dance, studied from a lot of the greats of the time, learning their styles, the classical styles of ballet, and then expanding upon them, adding more athletic movement to dance

and like jumping and things. And so created her own style, sort of advanced our understanding of what can be considered ballet. Cool. So was very talented in a big name in ballet. She felt like as she developed her own styles and systems of dance that dance could be used as exercise, physiotherapy, as ways of teaching our bodies how to move, correcting our posture,

easing chronic pain. She was very interested in dance as a way to do those things, not just express what dance does, not just be a beautiful art form, but in its therapeutic possibilities. Specifically, she felt like it had a lot of possibilities for people who had limitations in their mobility, whether that's from some sort of congenital disorder

or from some injury that they sustained, she thought that she could work with those populations of patients kind of in a physical therapy realm through dance to help them improve their mobility and strength. So in 1925, Morris lectured on this system of movement that she had created to a bunch of doctors in London and how she felt like it was gonna be beneficial to patients and it was really well received and a lot of people

said like, you know, I think that there's something there. Now obviously she had not been trained in any sort of physical therapy at the time. So in order to legitimize her beliefs in her system at that point, which was really, I mean, it was really dance. Sure. She studied at London St. Thomas Hospital and her instructor was Minnie Randall,

who was a midwife and head of physical therapy and maternity care at the hospital at the time. So specifically she worked with somebody who was interested not just in physical therapy and the use of movement as a form of exercise and to strengthen and stretch and loosen your body and that kind of thing But also was a midwife and so sort of had this cross interest in

Things that would affect your pelvic floor Does that make sense like you can kind of see where the seeds of this come from and and she would actually go on to become a founding member of the obstetrics physiotherapist association So the idea that there are things we can do with our bodies to move those of us who can become pregnant before and after to improve our mobility and physicality and you know, which is, I mean, as someone who has been pregnant myself,

yeah, I wish I had been a lot more active during, because afterwards it was hard to get back to that. So Morris collaborated with Randall and they published a book called Maternity and Postoperative Exercises in Diagrams and Words. And now this was not a book about pelvic floor exercises. It was a book about a lot of different exercises, right? Because Morris's main area of expertise was more the entire body, which is a dancer, of course.

But there was a section in the book where they described how to contract and relax your pelvic floor muscles. So they described what we now call Kegel exercises and specifically said this would be a way that was recommended both during pregnancy and then after pregnancy as a way to prevent on the front end and then treat any incontinence.

So if you are losing urine, unable to hold in your urine, this would be a way to help fix that. And the way they put it is that women should try to quote, invert the sphincters until it becomes habitual. Now I know invert the sphincters feels like a weird way to put it, but if you think about you're doing it now and you're thinking about, is that like inverting the sphincter?

But it's kind of like- It's like you're trying to, I mean, if I could be a little vulgar, it's like you're trying to pinch, right? Yeah. The best way I have described it to people before- It's like you're trying to pinch and pee at the same time. It's, the best way I've described it to people is if for some reason you were, well, for me sitting,

you would not be sitting, standing. Or perhaps you'd like to sit, I don't know, do you ever sit to pee? Do you wanna share that? Do I ever sit to pee? I mean, I see you stand to pee because sometimes you pee with the door open, but like, do you ever?

I don't want to talk about this anymore. I just realized. If you suddenly stop the flow of urine. Yes. That's how the drops end up on the floor. Like. That's what happens there. If you feel, Yeah.

Especially for those of us with vaginas, that's a very useful way to think about it. Yeah. Stop peeing suddenly midstream. Yeah. There you go. Now do that only not when you're peeing. Yeah. Okay.

And then don't let it go when you're sitting back at your desk or whatever. Continue to pee in the toilet and then empty and then don't pee at your desk. Don't pee at your desk. But you can do kegels at your desk. That is totally fine. There are no rules.

And there should never be rules about that. If there are, you're in a dystopia. Try to get out. Honestly, if that was part of project 2025, I would not be shocked. If part of it is banning kegels at our desks, not be shocked. So anyway, Morris not only said like, you should do these exercises, this would be good for you.

And I should say under the tutelage of Minnie Randall, so like the two of them working together, not only did they say this, Morris actually recommended like a soundtrack, like had classical music selections that she said would be useful to like do these exercises too. Which I had this thought like, what would I do if I had to pick a song to do Kegel exercises to? Hmm. Hot Stepper by Inacquasi?

Is that what you would pick? Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na ever gonna think about for the rest of my life while I do kegels is the theme to Dawson's Creek. I don't wanna wait for my life to be over. I want to know right now what will it be? I don't know why, but in my head I was like, that's the song, that's the kegel song. I don't know why. I feel like Where Have All The Cowboys Gone would be a better Kegel song. But anything for the Pollack Hole over there.

You're going to think about it now. You're going to think about the next time you're doing Kegels, you're going to be sitting there thinking, open up your morning light. Okay. Anyway, so in and then following that Randall published a book, Training for Childbirth from the Mother's Point of View. And again, she described in this book that you could squeeze these muscles and it would be a way to strengthen

those pelvic floor muscles to prevent like peeing on yourself and all that kind of thing. And then specifically mentioned like, this is a good idea after giving birth. It's a good idea to practice doing this every time you cough or sneeze, because otherwise you might pee on yourself. And there are many people out there who are nodding along

because they do this every time they cough or sneeze because they don't wanna pee on themselves and they know exactly what I'm talking about. And I just want you to know you're not alone. There's a lot of us out there. So to be fair, after all this work was published is when Dr. Kegel did his study and published his study. And he did, I mean it is noted that he was studying these problems among his patients for

almost two decades prior to publishing his work. So like a lot of scientific advancements, stuff is happening at the same time. Like there's a vibe and everybody's kind of feeling the vibe, but somebody claims it first. Dr. Kegel did study it, which I mean, it's so hard to criticize, especially women scientists at the time, for not being able to publish a peer-reviewed journal article

because it was so much more difficult, especially as a, I mean, if you consider this unlikely pairing of a classical ballet dancer and a midwife physical therapist who are trying to work together to share this information, largely with a female audience, they are not going to have kind of the social power to get that right, to publish a study

in a peer-reviewed journal in the 1940s that Dr. Arnold Kegel respected. Obstetrician and gynecologist is going to have. But he did the science, and that is important, right? Even if we kind of think something works and we have our own experience or anecdotal evidence, it's important that we do the science, that we have a control group and that we have our own experience or anecdotal evidence, it's important that we do the science, that we have a control group

and that we have a test group and that we monitor the two groups and we compare the results and we actually try to see if something works because there are lots of times where something feels like it should work and we think it does work and then you study it and find out it doesn't. So he did do the science. I think that that is, that's important to note.

I will say, as I was reading into this, do you know, Justin, this is not gonna shock you at all, and I don't think it'll shock our listeners. It is much more common for when a man discovers something, for him to name it after himself, than when a woman discovers something for her to name it after herself. And I don't mean that more things are named

after men than women because what you're gonna say to me is well that's because men were only the ones allowed to be scientists and so there were a lot more. No, I mean that if you control for how many things were discovered by men and women, men are just generally more likely to name it after themselves whereas women are more likely to name it something else.

So you can just think about that are just generally more likely to name it after themselves, whereas women are more likely to name it something else. So you can just think about that all you want. But I think whether it's a parasite or a plant, you're gonna find more named after men than you are after women. And it's not just because there were more men scientists for a long time. So do kegels work? With all this information about kegels,

we've known about them, especially in the West, we have known about them in a very codified, medical, like, therapeutic way. Since the 40s, do they work? Yes. They do, they do. We have had repeated studies and they've gone back and looked at multiple studies,

all kind of put together meta-analyses to say, do Kegels work? And when we're talking about specifically to try to prevent and treat urinary incontinence, peeing on yourself, yes, Kegels do have a benefit. And when they've tried to even challenge like other ways, like is it just some sort of exercise? They've even tested it against kind of

alternative exercise therapies or like, I think what they would, I read this really interesting study and I think that what they were looking into were some of the like wellness sort of like mix, like some of the modern mix, like the goop stuff, the mixing of the medical and the spiritual into this new wellness category that really isn't born of any specific spiritual religious tradition as just kind of our own new Western creation. And they compared those sorts of different physical activities with kegels and kegels still are better.

They went out, they do something and these other activities don't necessarily. So it's not just placebo, it's not just an exercise, it is specifically this exercise. If you do them right, the data for things, and this is true for prolapse, it's true for incontinence, the data for the sexual piece of it, does it increase your sensitivity, sexual arousal, ability to achieve orgasm, ability to achieve better or more frequent orgasms?

That piece of it, the data's a little weaker. It's not as strong. I will say it's probably, no, I will tell you, it has not been studied as extensively as whether or not they help you from peeing on yourself. And I will say also that you have to do them right. So you have to know what muscles you're using, and that can take some practice.

If you're doing kegels wrong, they probably won't do anything. And so sometimes biofeedback can be helpful. And that means we find a way to help you isolate what those muscles are. They do that sometimes for, we've talked about this before on the show, tension headaches. So if you look at, if you put your hand on your forehead

all the way across your forehead, like you're feeling for a fever, that's a big band of muscle there, your frontalis muscle. And when that gets tight, you get a tension headache, you can train yourself to relax that muscle. That's hard to do. And so sometimes they can hook you up to little electrodes to stimulate it,

so you can feel what it feels like to contract and feel what it feels like to relax until you can do it consciously, right? So like a similar thing can be done when it comes to Kegels, and that's where all these newfangled devices come in. Cause if you look, there are lots of Kegel weights, Kegel Kegelators, Kegel Kegelmasters, Kegel-

Kegel stands. And then like some with the kind of jade egg type vibes to them. Yeah. Did you hear when I said Cagle Sands? I didn't know if you missed that or not. No, I missed Cagle Sands. If you are having trouble isolating what muscles to use,

I could see like some of them are just sort of like balls, tiny balls that you can insert into the vaginal canal and then squeeze to feel like if I'm holding it in there, I'm using the right muscles. Do you know what I'm saying? Okay, so there are ones that like can help through that biofeedback mechanism. And then if you're really into like that,

I think it's kind of like the apps where you can track different things like your water intake and your sleep and stuff. There are Bluetooth things where like your phone will get little dings when you're doing them right. And so if you like that kind of, you know, like positive reinforcement, they do that. Now, do you need any of these devices?

No, if you were doing Kaggle's appropriately, there is no evidence to suggest. And they've actually done a 2019 meta-analysis where they looked at 11 different super-popular kegel devices, and the evidence for all of them is pretty thin. That doesn't mean they don't work, but it does mean that they're not necessarily any better than just doing a kegel on your own. It is important that you do them correctly. And I will say, if you decide to buy one of these devices, again, if you know how to do Kegels appropriately,

you don't need them. I would not personally recommend to one of my patients that they spend $300 plus on one of these very advanced technological gadgets, if that really brings you joy. But that would not be my personal recommendation. And I would make sure that the material is medical grade because again, back to the jade egg conversation,

something that is porous, you don't wanna just put anything in your body. We've talked about this on the tampons episode, right? You wanna be careful about the things that you decide to insert in your body and know what's there and know that there are materials that will not harbor bacteria, will not grow things that can cause infections,

and that you can clean properly between use. But generally speaking, kegels are good. They were created by women. And- Hooray for kegels. Hooray for kegels. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you've enjoyed yourself and learned a little something.

Go spread the word that women invented kegiggles. Spread the word, tell a friend. Thanks to the taxpayers for using their song, Medicines, as the intro and outro of our program. Thanks to you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. And I hope you have a lovely day. Till then, be sure to join us again next time for Cellphones. My name is Justin McRoy.

I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. All right! Yeah! Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by the American All right!