If you have had urinary urgency or frequency all your life, does that mean that this is normal?
Good question. As you may have guessed, “normal” is difficult to define since different women have different bodies… and different schedules. So when it comes to urinary urgency or frequency, what may be ordinary for one woman may be extraordinary or troublesome to another woman.
Even so, there may be a difference between what is healthy for you, and what you consider “ordinary” when it comes to your urinary habits.
Healthy versus Ordinary
How often does a woman with good pelvic health need to urinate? Should a healthy woman ever experience urinary urgency?
While there are no hard and fast rules for what is healthy, we do have some “rules of thumb” that are good guidelines to follow. For urinary urgency and frequency, here are some guidelines to consider:
– While most of us have experienced not reaching the bathroom in time (such as when waiting in a long line at the ladies room after a few beers), regularly having to “run” for the bathroom is a sign of poor pelvic health.
– If you experience the urge to urinate eight or more times a day, or you need to urinate shortly after you have emptied your bladder, you should probably talk to your doctor.
– If you use any of the following strategies, your pelvic health may be at risk: immediately looking for bathrooms in any new locations, practicing defensive voiding (such as urinating before a movie “just in case”), limiting travel for fear of urinary urgency or leakage, fluid restriction, or waking up nightly to urinate.
If any of the above guidelines resonate with behaviors you practice in your life, chances are that you have some form of women’s urinary incontinence. The most likely culprits are overactive bladder (also called urge urinary incontinence when leakage occurs) or mixed urinary incontinence.
Normal Does Not Always Mean Healthy
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, what you may have experienced as “normal” urinary habits all of your life may not actually be healthy. For instance, if you have always needed to urinate 12 or so times a day then this is normal for you, but not necessarily healthy. This kind of urinary frequency may indicate that you have experienced poor pelvic health all your life. The same is true of urinary urgency–experiencing urgency on occasion is nothing to worry about, but having urinary urgency four or more times per month is not healthy.
If the guidelines mentioned above indicate that your urinary habits are not healthy–however normal they may be for you–we suggest you schedule an appointment with your healthcare practitioner to get a true medical diagnosis. If you do, in fact, have poor pelvic health resulting in urinary urgency or frequency, the earlier you diagnose and treat your condition the higher your likelihood of success. So don’t delay calling your doctor, just do it!
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