The Importance of Pelvic Floor Health

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor WeaknessPelvic Organ ProlapsePessaryPOPStress Urinary Incontinence

Guest Post by Linda Grayling

A healthy pelvic floor serves as the supporting structure for the pelvic organs, which include the uterus, bladder and rectum. It supports the weight of the baby during pregnancy, and plays a role in core strength and posture. A strong pelvic floor can make childbirth and recovery easier, enhance sexual sensation, and help prevent pelvic floor disorders.

The extra pressure placed on the pelvic floor from supporting the baby throughout pregnancy and the strain of delivery can weaken this support system. This can lead to pain during or the inability to have sex, urinary incontinence, trouble with bowel movements, and prolapsed or displaced pelvic organs.

High-impact activities, heavy lifting, chronic coughing, frequently straining to produce a bowel movement, obesity, and smoking can also contribute to a weakened pelvic floor and increase the chance of developing a pelvic floor disorder.

Stress Urinary Incontinence
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common pelvic floor disorder that affects at least a third of all women at some point in their lives. It occurs when the stress from normal activities–like exercise, coughing or sneezing, laughing and even sex–triggers accidental urine leakage.

Many women experience minor issues with bladder control every now and then, but when incontinence becomes more frequent or interferes with daily life, they should talk to a doctor. Incontinence is directly related to the strength of the pelvic floor. Weakened pelvic floor muscles increase the odds of developing SUI.

Performing Kegel exercises daily can resolve symptoms of incontinence in just a few weeks. Not only will women stop experiencing embarrassing leakage during sex, but Kegels also heighten sexual sensation and help achieve orgasm.

Pelvic Organ Prolapse
Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the pelvic floor is no longer strong enough to hold the pelvic organs in their proper place, allowing them to sag against the vaginal walls–and in severe cases, protrude from the vaginal canal. Prolapse occurs in half of all childbearing women, but is frequently without symptoms, making it a non-issue.

For women who do experience symptoms, they can include a pulling feeling or pelvic pressure, low back pain, problems with bowel movements and urinary problems, pain during sex, and unusual spotting or bleeding. Symptoms can worsen over time.

Women should always try conservative treatments before considering surgery. Strengthening the pelvic floor throughout pregnancy and after childbirth is especially important in avoiding pelvic organ prolapse later in life.

Physical therapists can offer personal instruction on locating, isolating and strengthening the pelvic floor, and may employ biofeedback therapy, pelvic massage or the use of vaginal weights. Doctors may also recommend the use of a vaginal pessary to keep pelvic organs in place.

In recent years, many women have had corrective surgical procedures using transvaginal mesh to strengthen the pelvic floor. The complications associated with transvaginal mesh are not always reversible, and include organ perforation, mesh erosion and the need for revision surgery.

These complications have prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a warning stating that most cases of prolapse can be corrected without mesh and that mesh can expose patients to greater risk.

Women should ask their doctors about all of their surgical repair options, which can include using the patient’s own tissues or biologic products.

Linda Grayling writes for Drugwatch.com. Linda has a number of professional interests, including keeping up with the latest developments in the medical field. Join the Drugwatch community on our Facebook page to find out more.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

Tired of Being Publicly Humiliated by Women’s Urinary Incontinence? Bladder Retraining Can Help

by Mixed Urinary IncontinenceOveractive BladderUrge Urinary IncontinenceUrinary Incontinence

This blog is part 3 of an 11 article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Browse any online forum about women’s health, and you will likely come across the subject of women’s urinary incontinence. While other women’s health issues certainly have their own aspects of pain, the women posting in the urinary incontinence forum use some very strong phrases that definitely describe their pain and suffering. See if any of these adjectives resonate with you, especially when you suffer from a urinary leakage accident in public:

  • soooo embarrassed
  • terribly confused
  • hate that ‘wet pants’ look
  • humiliated in public … can never return to that store
  • everyone was staring … wished I could just disappear
  • detest owning 30 pairs of panties and carrying a good supply in public
  • feel so alone and isolated

If any of the above phrases ring a bell with you, especially the last one about ‘being alone,’ we know exactly how you feel. We also know, as a urologist and physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health, that you are most definitely not alone! We have helped many women with the exact same problem–and same kind of suffering–and helped them get past that humiliating public urine leakage accident.

That’s why we are writing this 11-part series on lifestyle changes that may significantly improve your urinary leakage issues. The key is to be persistent in your approach to relieving your symptoms. You can and should try some or all of the approaches discussed in this series. Some women respond well to one type of lifestyle change, while other women need a combination of multiple approaches before they see results. Finally, seek out a compassionate medical professional for a diagnosis and assistance.

In this article we talk about how to use a bladder diary so you can truly track your symptoms, since you can’t cure your urinary incontinence until you know specifics of your condition, down to the last detail. We then discuss how you can use bladder retraining, based on the information you learned from your bladder diary, as a conservative technique to relieve women’s urinary incontinence symptoms.

Keeping a Bladder Diary
The bladder diary (or voiding diary) is exactly what it sounds like: it is a record of your bladder habits. You may think you know absolutely everything about your condition, but when you start keeping a bladder diary, you may be surprised. Many women fail to notice crucial details of their urinary habits, and are surprised at how often they need to urinate, how many times a day they have strong urges, or the amount of water they drink. Most of these details fall by the wayside when there is a humiliating public leakage accident, or are simply filed under the category of “that happens a lot.” With a bladder diary, you will discover just how much is “a lot.” You will need these details so you can design a bladder retraining program that is customized to your unique condition.

To keep a bladder diary, simply track the following for a minimum of a week:

  • when, how much, and what kinds of fluids you drink (all fluids, especially caffeinated fluids)
  • when and how many times you urinate during the day
  • when and how many times a day you experience strong urges to urinate, whether you urinate or leak urine
  • how many times a day you experience leakage and how much you leak
  • the triggers that cause you to leak urine or experience strong urges (such as coughing or sneezing, hearing the sound of running water, or lying in bed)

Also record any other health issues you experience, even if you think they are not related to your urinary incontinence. Your doctor will want to know about these, as some may be caused by medications you take for other health conditions, or other lifestyle issues. Once you have at least a week’s worth of data, proceed to the next step: designing your customized bladder retraining program.

Designing Your Custom Bladder Retraining Program
Just as not all women start doing Kegels with the same level of intensity, your bladder retraining program should also be customized to your specific needs. A custom Kegel program is based on a woman’s current level of pelvic floor muscle fitness, including how long she can hold a correct contraction plus how many repetitions she can do. Your custom bladder retraining program will be based on how long your bladder can hold urine before you must urinate or have a leakage accident.

Bladder retraining is most effective if you have urge urinary incontinence (also called overactive bladder or OAB) or mixed urinary incontinence. The goal of this conservative therapy is to learn to delay your urination after you get the urge to urinate. Bladder retraining does work. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, women who practice this method notice the following improvements:

  • increased amount of urine the bladder can hold
  • better control over the urge to urinate
  • more time (or delay) between bathroom visits

These improvements can definitely help prevent those embarrassing public leakage accidents. What’s even better is that bladder retraining is not a difficult technique to learn or use. Simply use the following steps to start retraining your bladder today.

1. Determine Your Urination Interval
The goal of bladder retraining is to delay your trips to the bathroom to urinate so that you urinate once every two to three hours during the day (this is considered a “normal” voiding interval). If possible, bladder retraining should also help you avoid trips to the bathroom at night so you can experience uninterrupted sleep until morning. In short, bladder retraining gives you control of your bladder by having you urinate on a schedule.

Before you can set a schedule, you need to first determine the current interval between trips to the bathroom to urinate. For most women we recommend setting the interval at one-and-a-half hours. However some women cannot hold their urine for this long in the beginning. To determine your customized interval, look through your bladder diary and calculate the average amount of time between trips to the bathroom. You will use this average interval in the next step.

2. Increase Your Urination Interval with Timed Voiding
Once you have this average, add 5 to 10 minutes to this interval to arrive at your starting interval. For instance, if your bladder diary tells you that your average interval is normally 45 minutes, set your starting interval at 50 or 55 minutes. That means you will attempt to hold your urine and avoid trips to the bathroom for 50 to 55 minutes. Once the interval has ended, go to the bathroom and urinate, whether you need to or not. This process is called timed voiding, and is the basic technique behind bladder retraining. This process trains your bladder to release urine only when you choose, according to your own schedule.

Most women need to set a timer, especially at the beginning, to remind them when the interval has ended. If you feel the urge to urinate before the interval is complete, try one or more of these techniques to delay urination:

  • relax and breathe in a deliberate manner
  • sit quietly, avoid moving or fidgeting
  • visualize a tranquil scene (without water)
  • think about another topic to distract your attention
  • do a series of Kegels if you know you can do a correct contraction

If you still cannot hold your urine until the interval is over, don’t worry. Run for the bathroom. When you return, reset your timer and start again. Bladder retraining, like any learned technique, takes practice so don’t worry if you can’t make it to the end of the interval the first few times. Once you are able to consistently hold your urine during your chosen interval, stretch the interval by 5 to 10 minutes at a time until you reach the goal of two to three hours.

3. Once in the Bathroom Empty Your Bladder Completely
One of the keys to successful bladder retraining is to empty your bladder completely when you do finally urinate. Some women do not fully empty their bladders when they urinate, and this can interfere with the success of bladder retraining. To ensure that your bladder is completely empty, urinate until you feel your bladder is empty. Wait 10 seconds, and then lean forward. Try to urinate again. You may be surprised by the amount of urine that was still in your bladder. By leaning forward, you change the angle of your pelvic organs, especially the bladder neck, which allows any remaining urine to be released.

Coping with Women’s Urinary Incontinence Requires Patience and Persistence
Patience and persistence are the two “P’s” of success when coping with this humiliating, embarrassing, and downright inconvenient condition. As you commence your bladder retraining program, practice both patience and persistence. Be patient with yourself when you don’t make the interval or continue to suffer from leakage accidents. Retraining takes practice. Be persistent, as well. Stick to your voiding schedule like clockwork. We suggest you stick with your bladder retraining program for at least 40 days.

Continue logging your results in your bladder diary. Your bladder diary will help you notice even minor improvements in bladder control, and these changes should be celebrated! Any increase in bladder control is worth the effort that goes into a bladder retraining program. Also remember that bladder retraining is only one of many conservative therapies for women’s urinary incontinence. If bladder retraining doesn’t relieve your symptoms to your satisfaction, consider trying a combination of therapies (read all about them in this complete guide).

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

How to Do a Kegel: Different Positions Can Improve Your Performance

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor Weakness

This blog is an addendum to our 11-part article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. We thought it relevant to add this blog post since the first 2 New Year’s Resolutions are all about Kegels and pelvic floor muscle exercises! Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

How to do a Kegel for Newbies
There are tons of articles out there that talk about how you can do Kegels while waiting in line at the grocery store, while driving car, or while sitting at your office desk. Yup, even we have been guilty of writing those types of articles. We talk about doing Kegels in these various places because we want to emphasize the fact that adding Kegels and other exercises for your pelvic floor muscles does NOT have to be difficult, complicated, or impossible. We try to emphasize that Kegels can be done whenever you have a spare minute or two, with the goal of encouraging more women to do Kegels for their pelvic health.

But here’s the thing … for the woman who has never done Kegels or the woman who is not doing a Kegel correctly, trying to do these exercises while sitting in a car or standing in the grocery line is going to be next to impossible. For these women, it is best to start doing Kegels from positions of less resistance, such as lying down or lying on her side. If you think about it, doing Kegels in these positions make sense. After all, in both sitting and standing positions gravity exerts a strong downward pull on everything, including the pelvic floor muscles. Since the goal of Kegels is to pull the pelvic floor muscles upward and inward, any woman in a sitting or standing position has to work against the force of gravity … which is no small force! If a woman has never done Kegels or has difficulty doing Kegels, fighting gravity while doing these exercises just doesn’t make sense!

Best Positions for Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises
Now that we’ve established that doing pelvic floor muscle exercises, such as Kegels, while sitting or standing is not ideal for beginners or women struggling with these exercises, let’s talk about strong positions for these women. The best positions for these women to start practicing Kegels are supine and side-lying. In regular human words, supine and side-lying mean this:

  • Supine: This just means that you lie on your back with your legs stretched out in a relaxed position (you can do this on your bed or on the floor, whichever is most comfortable for you)
  • Side-Lying: As the name implies, you lie on your side with your legs bent at a relaxed and comfortable angle (again, on the bed or floor)

With either of these positions, feel free to use a pillow to support your neck if necessary (our goal is your pelvic health, not to give you a pain in the neck!). The side-lying position offers the least resistance, but can also be a bit awkward for some women. Try both positions and see which one seems more comfortable for you. In fact, you might try both positions and try to do a Kegel contraction in both. Also remember that if you want to troubleshoot  your Kegels, you’ll need to be able to place one hand between your legs.

We suggest that you try doing Kegels in the supine position first. If you continue to have trouble doing a correct Kegel , then move to the side-lying position and try the contractions again there. If you are new to doing Kegels or are not sure you are doing them correctly, please check this post  to test yourself. If you continue having trouble doing a correct Kegel contraction in either the supine or side-lying positions, then seek the help of a specialist in women’s pelvic health.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

How to Do a Kegel: Do You Know How?

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesPelvic Floor Weakness

This blog is an addendum to our 11-part article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. We thought it relevant to add this blog post since the first 2 New Year’s Resolutions are all about Kegels and pelvic floor muscle exercises! Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Do You Know How to Do a Kegel, Really?
For many women, this sounds like a silly question. Of course women know how to do a Kegel. After all, women are often handed direction sheets on how to do a Kegel–whether post-partum or as an alternative therapy for symptoms such as urinary leakage. Just in case you’re not sure about the vocabulary we are using here, a Kegel is a pelvic floor muscle contraction developed by Dr. Arnold Kegel to help women improve their pelvic floor.

So who doesn’t know how to do a Kegel, right?

Wrong.

It turns out that about 50% of women cannot do a Kegel (or contraction of the pelvic floor muscles) correctly. What do these women do wrong?

  • contract the wrong muscles (such as the thigh or buttock muscles)
  • contract no muscles (including the pelvic floor muscles)
  • forget to release the muscles between contractions
  • push the pelvic floor muscles downward and outward rather than pulling them up and in

And these are just a few of the possible problems that women could encounter when learning how to do a Kegel based on written instructions alone. The negative result is that women who do Kegels incorrectly then assume that Kegels do not work for alleviating symptoms of urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, or decreased sexual sensation. They could not be more wrong! If you don’t believe us, check out the statistics on how well Kegels work to alleviate these types of symptoms.

How to Do a Kegel Correctly
So if at least 50% of women are doing Kegels incorrectly based on written instructions alone, what should those women do? Simple: troubleshoot the Kegel. This exercise for your pelvic floor muscles is simple to troubleshoot if you can create about 45 minutes of quiet time in your house … alone! Do whatever you have to do to get the kids, hubby, and pets out of the way. Turn off your phone ringers and pager sounds. This may seem like a lot of work just to troubleshoot the Kegel, but you’ll find this small investment of time well worth it!

Once you’ve created an oasis of quiet in your home, follow these steps to troubleshoot your Kegel. Be aware that you will need to be willing to touch yourself in your pelvic region. If you are unwilling to do this, then please refer to our blog post on getting help from a physical therapist specializing in women’s pelvic health.

How to Do a Kegel

  1. To prepare yourself, wash your hands thoroughly, and then remove your pants and underwear (if you feel comfortable doing so). Lie on your bed (or the floor, if you prefer) face up with your legs straight out in a relaxed position. You may want to cover yourself with a light blanket for comfort.
  2. Place two fingertips of one hand between your legs on the perineum, which is the space between your vagina and your anus. You will be using these two fingers to feel whether your pelvic floor muscles pull up and in when you do a Kegel. Place your other hand under your buttock, slightly toward the outside edge. With this hand, you will be testing whether you tighten your buttock muscles when you do a Kegel contraction. Note that you want to avoid tightening your buttock muscles when you do a Kegel.
  3. Now do a Kegel (or pelvic floor muscle contraction). Not sure how to do this? No worries. Just picture that you are in a crowded elevator and you have intestinal gas. To prevent yourself from passing gas, you tighten certain muscles in your pelvic region, right? These are the same muscles you tighten to do a correct Kegel. As you do so, feel whether there is an inward and upward contraction where you have your two fingers (on the perineum). If you are doing a correct Kegel, you should feel this slight “in and up” sensation. At the same time, you should feel NO tightening of your buttock muscles. Now release the contraction. Releasing your muscles between contractions is VERY important because a lack of release can lead to over-tightening of the pelvic floor muscles, as well as pelvic pain and other unwanted side effects.
  4. Now repeat the process, this time moving the hand that was on your buttock to your inner thigh. Keep your other hand on your perineum, between your legs. Do another Kegel contraction, checking again that the perineum has a slight inward and upward pull, while your thigh muscle remains relaxed. Release the contraction.
  5. Finally, move your hand from your inner thigh to your abdomen. Repeat the process and ensure that your abdominal muscles do not push outwards as you do your Kegel. Again release the contraction.

If you were able to follow these instructions on how to do a Kegel without tightening your thigh or buttock muscles, and without pushing out your abdominal muscles, during each contraction, then you DO know how to do a Kegel. If, on the other hand you felt your thigh or buttock muscles tightening (or your abdominals pushing outward), you need to slow down and retrain yourself how to do a Kegel.

Taking Your Time Doing Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises
If you found yourself doing your Kegels incorrectly based on the above instructions, then you have two options: you can retrain yourself to do a correct Kegel or you can get help from a specialist in women’s pelvic health. If you want to try to retrain your pelvic floor muscles yourself, simply follow the instructions given above. As you do each Kegel, consciously focus on contracting your pelvic floor muscles while keeping your thigh and buttock muscles relaxed. If you tend to push your abdominal muscles outward, focus on using them to help you pull your pelvic floor muscles inward and upward.

Take your time practicing these contractions. You may need to move your hand from thigh to buttock to abdominal muscles. Touching these muscles can help you consciously relax them even as you tighten your pelvic muscles. At first it may take you up to 10 slow practice contractions to do a correct Kegel. Don’t worry. Be patient with yourself. Remember that you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about your pelvic floor muscles, so it may take a while for your brain and body to make the proper connections necessary to do a correct Kegel.

If you try to retrain your pelvic muscles yourself but are unsuccessful, we suggest you seek the help of a women’s pelvic health specialist  right away. Not only will this save you a lot of frustration, but getting help means that you will have far less to “unlearn” than if you keep trying to troubleshoot the Kegel by yourself.

Don’t worry! Learning how to do a kegel isn’t rocket science … sometimes you just need to take a little time to learn how to do it right or get some help. Either option is perfectly wonderful, and we applaud you for your focus on your pelvic health!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to check out our book, leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercises That Actually Work

by KegelsPelvic Floor MusclesUrinary Incontinence

This blog is part of an 11 article series of 11 New Year’s resolutions that actually work and WILL improve your pelvic health. Get the full list of all 11 New Year’s resolutions HERE.

Pelvic floor muscles … those mystical muscles we women have “down there,” which we can’t see and which do so much for us. What do our pelvic floor muscles for us? A bunch. Here’s a short list of the important roles they play in our anatomy:

  • support pelvic organs against the effects of gravity
  • prevent urinary leakage and allows urination when needed
  • keep pelvic organs from sagging down and out
  • control the tightening and relaxation of urethra, vagina, and anus as needed
  • contribute to pleasurable sexual sensation

And that’s just the short list of what our pelvic floor muscles do for us every day, all day (and all night). As you might have guessed, keeping these very important muscles fit and toned is important for our quality of life.

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Do Kegels Work?
Surprisingly, many women have heard of the term “Kegel” but don’t really know what it means. Or, a woman might have a vague idea of what a Kegel is, but not really know how to do a Kegel (or how to do a CORRECT Kegel). So what is a Kegel? The word “Kegel” was a term first coined in 1948 by Dr. Arnold Kegel. He introduced the Kegel as an exercise for the pelvic floor muscles, in which these muscles are alternately contracted and relaxed. The goal of doing Kegels is to strengthen and tone the pelvic floor muscles so that they can provide passive support all day long (such as keeping the pelvic organs in place) as well as offer active support (such as keeping urine in the bladder when you sneeze). The term Kegel has become so popular that some people now refer to the pelvic floor muscles collectively as the Kegel muscle.

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is a Kegel?” the second question is, “Do Kegels work?” The answer is “Yes”–provided that these pelvic floor muscle exercises are done correctly. What do we mean when we say that these exercises must be done correctly? We mean that when you do a pelvic floor muscle contraction, you contract only the pelvic floor muscles without contracting other muscles such as the abdominal, thigh, or buttock muscles.

If you are not sure whether you know how to do a correct Kegel, you can easily troubleshoot this exercise with our no-cost downloadable ebook, “What’s Up Down There?” Just go HERE to download the ebook.

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercising at Your Level of Fitness
Another important note when beginning a pelvic floor muscle retraining program is to ensure that you exercise according to your level of pelvic fitness. In other words, you want to exercise your pelvic floor muscles just enough that you begin to tone and strengthen them, but not so much that you overtire them or actually begin to contract them tightly all the time. If you try to do too many pelvic floor muscle contractions, your muscles will begin to tire and you will start using other muscles (buttock, thigh, or abdominal) to compensate. This will decrease the benefits of your exercise program. The other danger of doing too many contractions for your level of fitness is that you may actually begin to hold your pelvic muscles in a contracted state all the time, which can lead to pelvic pain and other unwanted side effects.

In our practices, we have women test their level of pelvic muscle floor fitness before designing a custom program that matches their level of fitness. If you would like to test yourself and start a home pelvic floor muscle retraining program, check out the detailed step-by-step plan outlined in our book. This program is a definite no-brainer if you are a “do-it-yourself” kind of gal!

Pelvic Floor Muscles: Exercising Them Really Does Work
If you have heard rumors that Kegels are ineffective for improving pelvic health, or if your own experience shows you that pelvic floor muscle exercises don’t work, we urge you to review the research. Studies show that, when done correctly, pelvic floor muscle retraining really does improve women’s pelvic health. These exercises can improve symptoms of all types of urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. These exercises can also improve your sexual sensation and pleasure. Check out the research in THIS blog post.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: The Power of Knowing Yourself

by General Urinary IncontinenceOveractive Bladder

When you experienced your first symptom of women’s urinary incontinence, how did you react? Did you try your best to ignore the whole event? If you pulled the “ostrich act” then you are in the majority. More than 50% of women who have urinary incontinence don’t seek help and do their best to act like “nothing is wrong.”

Whether or not something is actually “wrong” is perhaps debatable, but what isn’t up for debate is that fact that you will have to cope with your symptoms of urinary incontinence. Coping with your symptoms may mean wearing absorbent pads, carrying around a change of clothes, or making note of the location of every bathroom in town! These are helpful ways to deal with your symptoms, but you can do one thing that will help even more:

~~ Know thyself! ~~

The Power of Knowing Yourself
All women who have urinary incontinence suffer from one of three forms: stress, overactive bladder/urge, or mixed. Getting an accurate diagnosis is the best way to figure out which type of urinary incontinence is affecting you. However, if you are not quite ready to get help from your doctor, you can still take an empowering step towards coping with your symptoms by learning more about your own condition.

When you know the specifics of your condition, you can better anticipate when urinary incontinence symptoms will occur, which will help you cope with those symptoms. For instance, here are some aspects about your condition that you may want to know:

  • What triggers your urinary incontinence?
  • Do you suffer from frequency, urinary leakage, or both?
  • How often do you feel the urge to urinate?
  • Do you feel the urge to urinate at night? How many times per night?
  • When you leak urine, how much do you leak?
  • Will absorbent pads prevent leakage accidents from showing, or do you need to carry a change of clothes with you?
  • When you feel the urge to urinate, how much time before urine starts to flow?
  • Do certain foods or drinks worsen your symptoms?
  • Does doing a correct pelvic floor muscle contraction (Kegel) delay urge or urinary leakage?

These are just a few of the aspects of your condition that can help you anticipate and even prevent symptoms. To best understand your condition, keep a journal of your symptoms for a week or two. Just toss a notepad and pen into your purse, and jot down symptoms as they occur. You might be surprised at what you discover. For instance, one woman was surprised to discover that she felt the urge to urinate more than 15 times per day. Without the journal, she would have estimated a much lower number. In addition, the same woman was surprised to discover the variety of different triggers for her symptoms–everything from her morning cup of coffee to the sound of running water and cold weather!

While keeping this kind of journal for a few weeks make be a bit inconvenient, you will most likely find that the benefits far outweigh the inconvenience. Even better, if and when you decide to seek help from a medical professional, this journal will give your doctor a very clear idea of your symptoms. With this information, your doctor will be able to diagnose your condition more accurately and quickly. That’s definitely a win-win situation!

 

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to leave a comment, contact us, download our free ebook, or interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.