Talking Taboo
Words / Lou Andrews and Kat Casey-Farmer
Millions in the UK are quietly suffering with a condition that, even in 2025, is barely even whispered about...
This evening, I have the pleasure of talking to Kat Casey-Farmer. Kat has been a hairdresser for 27 years and was previously a very well-respected style consultant at Rush in Croydon, which is where I first met her. She now owns her own salon called Time Hair & Beauty in Caterham, Surrey, which has been thriving for 9 years – but we’re not here to talk about hair tonight, no, we’re about to discuss something a little more taboo...incontinence. It’s a subject that no-one really wants to talk about, and yet NHS England estimates that around 14 million men, women and children are living with bladder problems in the UK. It’s a big problem, with a little voice, but help is at hand in the form of a bladder busting miracle chair, so let’s take a seat and find out what it’s all about...
So, Kat, tell me about this wonder chair of yours! What is an incontinence chair and how did you find out about this sort of thing?
I have suffered with incontinence myself, since having children, and it was particularly bad after I had Arden, my third. I’m always looking for a quick fix, because I simply don’t have the time to go to endless Pilates sessions. A friend of mine in Australia had had treatment using an incontinence chair and it had worked for her. So, I set myself the task of trying to find one over here. I managed to find somewhere just up the road from me, and I noticed the difference after the first treatment.
Wow. So, it was that quick?
Yeah. That isn’t the case for everybody. There’s lots of different types of incontinence, but the two most common are Stress Incontinence and Urgency Incontinence. Stress is when you do things like a high impact run, skipping or going on the trampoline and you leak, and urgency is when you literally cannot hold your wee as you’ve not got enough muscle there to hold it in.
Right. So, would that last one be where pregnancy incontinence fits in?
Yeah. So partly, but also, I think people automatically think that incontinence is caused by being pregnant or giving birth! No. It also occurs in women, particularly of perimenopausal or menopausal age, whether you have had kids or not. When women start to go through the menopause, they can experience a lot of vaginal dryness, which can be quite uncomfortable. What the chair does is increase the blood flow through to that area, which helps with the dryness.
It’s a degeneration of the muscle, but it’s also happens to men as well!
Hang on, wait, what? As in, the penis muscles?
Yeah. So, guys obviously have prostates, and the prostate can get enlarged. Some men may have had to have a prostatectomy because they’ve had cancer. The radiation treatment for that causes a breakdown of the muscle, which causes incontinence. And, again, aging causes a change in hormones and the degeneration of the muscle, and so therefore, a lot of people experience incontinence at some point.
That’s really interesting, because we always assume that incontinence is associated with pregnant women and old people! Even the adverts seem to be based around that. But that isn’t the case, you can have it from any age?
Yes, any age, and what we need to be doing is seeing this as a wellness matter – looking after your pelvic health – rather than it being a taboo subject.
Yes. And by pelvic health, I am assuming you don’t mean just using Femme Fresh! It’s an interesting point though, because we focus so much on matters of the mind, but this is a subject that impacts so many people and yet no-one talks about it.
Yeah. So, I have a client using the chair now. He has suffered with, what he calls ‘the leak’ for a long time – like thirty-odd years! And he’s so ashamed that he won’t even buy pads. He folds up a hanky, and he wears a clean hanky in his pants every day for ‘the leak’!
Oh, wow. So clearly people are embarrassed by this. Is that impacting people booking sessions, and when they do book, are they nervous or worried about talking about it?
What really struck me with the first two customers that booked in, is that I didn’t realise how much of an emotional effect it has on people and how, mentally, it’s a real struggle. So, when my first lady came in she was really emotional when she sat on the chair. And it made me think about my own experience. I thought, ‘do you know what? My day-to-day life was really affected by it’. It would be something that was constantly on my mind. I’d be careful choosing what I was going to wear, because I thought it was going to show. If I was going to the gym, I never wore brightly colored leggings, for instance, because I was worried it would show.
Yeah, I think that’s the case with a lot of these situations. People are embarrassed, so they hide it and hope it will just go away, but of course it won’t and the longer you leave it, it just sort of builds up into this great big bubbling pot of stress and worry. Have you found that you get more women calling to book appointments, or do you get some men?
Well, at the moment, it’s more women, but it’s early days. I’ve only had the chair since September. I’ve had to invest quite a large amount of money in the machine, and so the cost of a course is relatively expensive so it’s something that people are really having to think about before booking. But, once we’ve got them in, the clients that we’ve had, the women are like, ‘my husband needs to come in for this. He’s been asking me lots of questions!’. So, I think the fact that women are coming for treatment, it may push the guys through the door.
So, let’s talk about the cost...how much are we looking at here? And how many sessions do you need for a course?
Everybody starts off with 6 sessions in a course and the cost for that is £1200. But, when you consider the average person suffering with incontinence, spends about £700 a year on incontinence products, it’s worth it. Then most people will probably need to do one or two sessions every six months after that.
Right. So, a lot of people will be thinking that £1200 is a lot of money, but I guess, when you look at what this can do to someone’s frame of mind, you know, it’s well worth the money. Am I allowed to ask you how much that chair was to buy?!
Yeah, it was £50,000 plus VAT. But it’s not just incontinence that it helps.
It treats erectile dysfunction and can also improve women’s sexual health. I was feeling quite conscious of my ‘wizard’s sleeve’
Wow, that’s an expensive chair! What else does it do?
It treats erectile dysfunction and can also improve women’s sexual health. I was feeling quite conscious of my ‘wizard’s sleeve’!
An interesting term for it! Not sure Harry Potter would approve! <laughs> What do you mean, conscious?
I felt like it was loose down there, and it wasn’t as sensitive or enjoyable during sex. It didn’t feel the same, and it wasn’t as intense. It just felt different after childbirth. The pelvic floor muscle is hammock shaped and what happens is, as it degenerates, it kind of drops down because it gets a bit floppy and loose. What the incontinence chair does is it encourages that muscle to lift back up and strengthen.
How does it work?
The chair is like a just a flat chair that you literally just sit on, and it creates an electromagnetic field in the pelvic floor area – up to about 10 centimeters into your abdomen. Each session lasts about 28 minutes.
If you’re doing your pelvic floor exercises, brilliant, but your brain only allows you to exercise your pelvic floor muscles up to 40% of its capability. It’s just physically, the anatomy of your body and your brain will not allow you to do any more than 40% of its capability. This chair does 100% of it! It’s basically the equivalent of doing up to 11,000 Kegel exercises in one sitting!
Wow! Thats insane! Okay. So, there’s a massive difference there. Are there any side effects with it or anything like that?
No. Not really side effects, but you can feel a little bit dry down there for a while. Not for very long, like, two or three days or something. But, there are constraints to using it. You can’t have any metal in your body around that pelvic area. So, for example, if you have a pacemaker or a hip replacement, then unfortunately you can’t use it. The same goes for the old-fashioned copper coil, for instance.
How many sessions have you had on yourself now? And how do you feel?
I’ve had eight sessions and I feel like its life changing.
Really? What I wanna know is...are you in pink shimmery spandex when you go to the gym now?! Have you reached that confidence stage yet?
No. Because I’m too lazy to go to the gym! But honestly, I don’t feel like I’m going to wet my pants anymore. And I didn’t tell my partner that I’d had the treatment. Then, when we went to have a little jiggy-jiggy, he was like, ‘what’s happened?’. And he could feel the difference straight away, in a really good way!
No way. I love it, so there you go! Clearly, it has a massive impact...in more ways than one!
Yes! And in my salon, you can come and have your hair cut while you’re getting it done!
Well, there you have it people! I’ve got to say I feel enlightened by that chat...and somewhat confused. I mean, think about it, if you had a leak under your sink, you’d immediately get it fixed right? You’d call in the Super Mario Bros to power you up! You wouldn’t just leave it and wrap a towel around it hoping it would go away, would you? No. So why are we so different when it comes to our bodies? Why do we get so consumed with embarrassment when it comes to matters of the bladder, I mean, we don’t think twice about going to the dentist to fix our teeth or getting a pedicure to fix our feet, do we?
If you are thinking about getting treatment, give Kat a call at Time Hair & beauty. She certainly knows her stuff and I can honestly say she is one of the nicest and most open people I know, so you will be in good hands.
In conclusion, if you’re struggling out there, don’t just wrap a towel around it, spend a penny and get that leak fixed...
Lou x