Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Understanding Your Water Works

by General Urinary IncontinenceUrge IncontinenceUrge Urinary IncontinenceUrinary Incontinence

As they say, “Knowledge is power.” If you have women’s urinary incontinence, power means having knowledge about how your urinary system works. After all, if you want to understand why and how you are leaking urine or experiencing urinary urgency or frequency, then you have to first understand how your urinary system works, right?

So… if you want the knowledge that will empower you about your urinary incontinence, prepare yourself for a VERY SIMPLE anatomy lesson on your urinary system. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it simple. We will only relay the facts you absolutely MUST know to understand how your water works, work!

The Parts of Your Urinary System
When your urinary system is healthy, it acts as a well-synchronized system of organs that remove waste from your body. Your urinary system includes:

  • kidneys
  • bladder
  • ureters
  • urinary sphincters
  • urethra
  • your brain

Yup, your brain is part of your urinary system! Your brain sends and receives signals from your organs, coordinating them all so that you arrive at the bathroom in time to urinate.

How Your Urinary System Works
Your urinary system is not complicated, especially when it is working! The whole process starts with your kidneys, which produce urine by filtering waste products and excess water out of your bloodstream. Your kidneys send this waste material to your bladder via tubes called ureters.

Your bladder then stores the urine until you are ready to urinate. Your bladder, a hollow muscular organ that sits in the bowl of your pelvis, should be able to hold one to two cups of urine for up to two to five hours. As your bladder fills, circular muscles (called sphincters) keep the urine in your bladder, preventing leakage.

When your bladder is full, nerves in your bladder send signals to your brain, which results in your feeling the urge to urinate. Hopefully, at that point, you seek out a bathroom in plenty of time, and spell R-E-L-I-E-F. Specifically, when you are ready to urinate, your brain tells those urinary sphincters to relax and your bladder to contract. As a result, urine leaves the bladder, travels through the urethra, and out of your body (and hopefully into the toilet and not onto your panties)!

Not Too Complicated, Right?
So there you have it… the anatomy and workings of your urinary system. When everything works in synchrony, you have no problems. However, when the signals get mixed up along the way, the result is women’s urinary incontinence. The resulting symptoms include urinary urgency, frequency, and leakage. If you have these symptoms, it’s time to schedule an appointment with your doctor or specialist!

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Ladies: Read This if You Wonder What’s Up Down There

by Mixed Urinary IncontinenceOveractive BladderPelvic Floor WeaknessPelvic Organ ProlapsePOPStress Urinary IncontinenceUrge IncontinenceUrge Urinary Incontinence

Sometimes there is nothing like another person’s story to really motivate and empower us to take action for our own health. If you are concerned that you may have women’s urinary incontinence–meaning you have symptoms like urinary urgency, frequency, or leakage–the stories in this article may interest you. These stories may also interest you if you feel like something is falling out “down there”… or if your bedroom encounters have gone from “hot to not”!

If you wonder, “What IS up down there?” then read on… these stories may resonate with you plus motivate you to get the help you need!

Are You Like Jane?
Jane, in her mid-thirties, loves how kickboxing is helping restore her figure after she gave birth to her adorable son. What she doesn’t love is the amount of urine she leaks every time she kicks or boxes. In fact, the leakage happens so often that she is thinking of stopping her exercise program altogether.  Here’s what Jane doesn’t know.  She has stress urinary incontinence (also called stress incontinence), the most common form of urinary incontinence, which affects 26 percent of women over age 18 at some point in their lives. Childbirth is a major cause of stress incontinence. Most women with urine leakage wait more than six years to get help. Yet research shows that urinary incontinence in 8 out of 10 women with the condition can be improved. How long will Jane wait?

Jane solved her problem. Find out how by clicking HERE.

Are You Living Karen’s Story?
Sixty-two-year-old Karen has bathrooms on the brain. She has to urinate 10 to 12 times a day and a few times at night. Sometimes she feels a sudden urge and doesn’t make it to the bathroom in time–she then leaks a large volume of urine. Karen has to carry several changes of clothing with her and buys adult diapers in bulk. Her situation is bad, but her embarrassment about seeking help is worse, so she just keeps coping with the condition by herself.

This is what Karen should know. Karen is suffering from the most severe form of overactive bladder, called urge urinary incontinence. About 17 percent of women in the United States have urge incontinence, especially women 50 and older, but less than half seek help. Getting help is important, because about 60 percent of women with urge urinary incontinence also experience depression (though the two conditions are not always related). Help is also important because 70 percent of women with urge incontinence report symptom improvement with conservative treatments like medication or physical therapy.

Discover how Karen stopped leaking urine by reading her story HERE.

Does Jo’s Story Ring a Bell?
Jo, age 40 and very fit, faces a complex situation: she has the same symptoms as Jane and Karen, meaning she leaks urine when she exercises or laughs as well as because of sudden urges. She’s had symptoms for only 11 months but is definitely going to ask her doctor for help, even though she feels embarrassed. Her symptoms are frequent and serious.  What Jo will learn when she talks to her doctor: Jo’s doctor will tell her that she has mixed urinary incontinence, which is a combination of stress incontinence and urge incontinence or overactive bladder. Women with this mixed form of incontinence are more likely to seek help earlier because their symptoms tend to be worse and more frequent than symptoms of women who experience only stress or urge incontinence / overactive bladder. Mixed incontinence has a much stronger negative effect on quality of life, and women with this condition spend much more on laundry bills and adult diapers.

Jo was able to solve both types of urinary incontinence by using the steps outlined HERE.

Do You Share Susan’s Pain?
At age 68, Susan is suddenly experiencing low-back pain, chronic constipation, and the feeling that she is sitting on a ball. Luckily, she already has an appointment with her ob-gyn in a few weeks. She hopes her doctor will tell her what’s happening in her pelvic region.  What Susan’s ob-gyn will tell her at her appointment: Susan feels like she’s sitting on a ball because her pelvic organs have literally popped out of place. She has pelvic organ prolapse, in which one or more of her pelvic organs have moved out of place and now bulge into her vagina.  Susan’s ob-gyn will tell her that she is among the 3 to 6 percent of women who have severe pelvic organ prolapse, and will most likely need surgery to correct the problem. Surprisingly, between 43 and 76 percent of women have some degree of prolapse without knowing it and should be taking preventive action.

Susan was able to solve her pelvic organ prolapse issues with help from her doctor. Find out what Susan did HERE.

Do You Have “Not So Hot” Bedroom Encounters Like Cherie?
At age 42 Cherie is supposed to be in her sexual prime, at least according to the latest women’s magazines, but she feels far from sexy. With two children and a busy career, she considers sex to be at the bottom of her list. Further, sex with her husband just isn’t very pleasurable anymore because Cherie doesn’t feel much sensation in her sexual organs. She avoids sex as much as possible, but her husband is becoming upset and worried. She knows she needs to do something to resolve the situation, but she doesn’t know what.

How Cherie can solve her sexual problem: More than 40 percent of women are dissatisfied with their sex lives, and many of these women have decreased sexual sensation, which is what Cherie is experiencing. This decrease in sensation is often due to weak pelvic floor muscles, and the good news is that these muscles can easily be strengthened with pelvic floor muscle exercises. Studies show that women who do pelvic floor exercises reach orgasm more easily and experience more sexual desire. Cherie can improve her symptoms by following a simple pelvic floor exercise program, such as one from her physical therapist or the at-home program in chapter 7 in our book.

Cherie changed her bedroom encounters from “not, back to hot”… find out how by reading her story HERE.

Read, Plan, Do
Once you have read through these women’s’ stories, you should have a pretty good idea of what is going on with your pelvic health. Then make a plan. Will you call your family doctor for a referral to a urologist or will you visit your ob/gyn? Will you stop in and visit with your family doctor first?

Whatever you plan that takes you closer to solving your pelvic health issues is good. Then you must DO. A plan without action is not a very useful plan. So once you have your plan, do it! Take action for your own pelvic health. You will be surprised how much your quality of life will be affected by improving 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.

Diet Modification for Women’s Urinary Incontinence – Avoiding Bladder Irritants

by General Urinary IncontinenceMixed Urinary IncontinenceUrge Urinary IncontinenceUrinary Incontinence

This blog is part 6 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.

One popular adage says, “You’ve got egg on your face” … if you’ve got women’s urinary incontinence, the saying should probably say, “You’ve got food in your underwear!” Why? Because certain food and beverages can be bladder irritants, worsening symptoms like urinary leakage, frequency, and urge. One of the simplest lifestyle changes that women with urinary incontinence can make is to modify their diets to avoid bladder irritants.

What Are Bladder Irritants?
Bladder irritants are any foods or beverages that tend to make the urine more acidic, irritating areas of the bladder and urethra that are already inflamed. Mostly, bladder irritants include foods and beverages that:

  • are acidic
  • contain caffeine
  • have alcohol
  • contain tyrosine, tyramine, tryptophan, aspirate, and phenylalanine
  • you are allergic to

Avoiding these types of food and beverages can improve symptoms of urinary incontinence, especially with urinary urgency and frequency.

What To Do If You Cannot Avoid Bladder Irritants
While you can make every effort to avoid bladder irritants in your diet, there will be certain times when you simply cannot avoid these foods or beverages. For instance, suppose you find yourself at a dinner party where almost every item served is a bladder irritant. What’s a woman with urinary incontinence to do? Luckily, there are several strategies that can help you in these situations.

1. Use Prelief
Prelief is an over-the-counter medication that removes acid from the foods and beverages. Simply supplement meals that are acidic in nature with Prelief to avoid irritating your bladder.

2. Use a Coffee Substitute
If you absolutely must have your morning cup of joe to start your day, try a coffee substitute like Kava. Another option Postum, which is a low-acid instant drink similar to coffee. Caffeine-free herbal teas are another great way to start your morning.

3. Drink Plenty of Water
If you happen to eat or drink something that suddenly increases your urinary urges or frequency, drink plenty of water. The water will dilute the effect of the bladder irritants and reduce urine acidity.

Experimenting with Diet Modification
Once you remove all the offending foods and beverages from your diet, you will probably find that your symptoms of urinary urgency and frequency improve. This usually occurs within a few weeks of changing your diet. Once your symptoms improve, you can experiment by adding single foods or beverages back into your diet, noting which ones irritate your bladder and which do not.

Some people find immediate relief from this kind of diet modification, while others find this type of program too difficult to follow over a long period of time. Regardless, diet modification is a proven conservative therapy for women’s urinary incontinence, especially those with urge or mixed incontinence.
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.

 

Embarrassed by Urine Leakage? How Quitting Smoking Can Reduce Bladder Spasms

by Mixed Urinary IncontinenceStress Urinary IncontinenceUrge Urinary Incontinence

This blog is part 4 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.

Did you know that smoking is one of the worst culprits when it comes to women’s urinary incontinence, especially those uncontrollable bladder spasms that cause embarrassing urine leakage!

If you smoke, you probably already know that it is one of the least-healthy activities you can do. For instance, women who smoke have four times the risk of developing bladder cancer. Not good. If you are a woman who smokes and suffers from bladder spasms and/or urine leakage, then you are definitely doing yourself a disservice.

The Link Between Smoking and Urine Leakage
Smoking is a risk factor for all three types of women’s urinary incontinence:

  • stress
  • urge (or overactive bladder)
  • mixed

With stress urinary incontinence, the pelvic floor muscles are too weak to hold urine in the bladder when abdominal pressure increases, such as when you cough or sneeze. If you smoke for a long period of time, chances are high that you will develop a chronic smoker’s cough. Each time you cough, you put immense downward pressure on your pelvic floor muscles. As time passes, this constant downward pressure will result in weakened pelvic floor muscles, and eventually urine leakage. Studies show that women who smoke are twice as likely to develop symptoms of stress urinary incontinence.

If you have urge urinary incontinence (also called overactive bladder), you experience frequent and sudden urges to urinate, whether or not you leak urine. These sudden urges are caused by bladder spasms which force urine out of your body when you least expect it. Smoking only worsens these bladder spasms since nicotine is a bladder irritant. More bladder spasms equal a greater frequency and urge to urinate.

With mixed urinary incontinence, you experience the symptoms of both stress and urge urinary incontinence. That means if you smoke, your symptoms will be doubly difficult to handle. In addition to bladder spasms from the nicotine, you can experience leakage every time you cough, sneeze, or exercise. More importantly, women who smoke are 28 percent more likely to develop some form of urinary incontinence!

The moral of this story should be crystal clear: if you want to avoid urine leakage, bladder spasms, and all other symptoms of urinary incontinence, stop smoking! If you feel you cannot stop smoking on your own, ask your doctor for help. Many smoking cessation methods are now available, and can provide the support you need to stop smoking today, and relieve your symptoms of urinary incontinence.

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.

 

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.

Mixed Women’s Urinary Incontinence: The Best and Worst of Both Worlds

by Mixed Urinary IncontinenceOveractive BladderUrinary Incontinence

If you have women’s urinary incontinence, specifically mixed urinary incontinence, then you probably know exactly what the phrase “The Best and Worst of Both Worlds” means. Women with mixed urinary incontinence suffer from symptoms of both stress and urge incontinence. Women with stress urinary incontinence leak urine every time they put stress on the bladder or abdominal cavity, such as when sneezing, laughing, coughing, or exercising. With urge urinary incontinence (or the milder form, overactive bladder), women experience strong and sudden urges to urinate, often resulting in a urinary accident with copious amounts of leakage. Women with urge incontinence or overactive bladder also have to urinate frequently, and often at night.

The Worst of Both Worlds
Women with mixed urinary incontinence suffer the symptoms of both stress and urge incontinence–at the same time! When it comes to women’s urinary incontinence, having the symptoms of mixed incontinence is like living in the “worst of both worlds.” These women feel like they have to be prepared for urinary leakage at ANY time! Women with mixed incontinence have symptoms that are both more severe AND more frequent than women who have only stress or urge incontinence. In fact, studies show that women with mixed incontinence rate their quality of life as being more strongly affected than women with the other types of urinary incontinence. Unfortunately, about one-third of women with urinary incontinence suffer from this form. That’s the bad news. That truly is the worst of both worlds!

The Best of Both Worlds
Now here’s the good news: women with mixed urinary incontinence are more likely to seek medical help for their condition sooner than their counterparts with only stress or urge incontinence. Studies demonstrate that the severity of a woman’s urinary incontinence symptoms is a good predictor of her likelihood for seeking help. Another bit of good news is this: because women with mixed incontinence are more likely to seek medical help, physicians have more experience helping women with this condition. What this means for you is that, should you seek medical help for your mixed incontinence, your doctor is likely have plenty of experience with your condition and know the available treatments.

How Your Doctor Will Treat Your Mixed Urinary Incontinence
With mixed urinary incontinence, your physicians first task to is determine which form of incontinence (stress or urge) is dominant in your case. Your doctor will then recommend options to treat the more dominant condition first. Once that condition has been addressed, your doctor will then suggest therapies for the secondary condition. For instance, suppose your form of mixed urinary incontinence is dominated by stress incontinence. This means you are more likely to leak urine when you put stress on your bladder and abdomen, such as when you cough, sneeze, laugh, exercise, or step off a curb. You also have urge incontinence, but you leak urine less often due to this condition. In your case, your doctor will recommend treatment options for stress incontinence first, which might include pelvic floor retraining, lifestyle and behavior modification, or even surgery. Once you find a combination of treatments that alleviate your stress urinary incontinence symptoms to your satisfaction, your physician will then address your urge incontinence symptoms. For instance, she may recommend that you take medication to relieve your urge incontinence symptoms.

Make sense? Good. So … if you are suffering from mixed urinary incontinence, now is the time to pick up the phone and call your doctor. Your quality of life is most probably being severely impacted by this condition, and there is no need to suffer any longer. We strongly encourage you to seek medical guidance now so that you can look forward to a time in your near future when you will be high and dry!

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: Overcoming Your Fear of Surgery

by Find the Right DoctorGeneral Urinary IncontinencePessary

When it comes to women’s urinary incontinence, embarrassment tops the list of reasons that affected women don’t seek help. Another major reason these women don’t seek help is this: fear of surgery. Affected women are afraid that seeking a medical diagnosis from a physician will automatically lead to surgery. Many people, not just women with urinary incontinence, have a fear of surgery. Luckily, these fears are mostly unjustified.

Women’s Urinary Incontinence: Try Conservative Methods First
Do you suffer from women’s urinary incontinence, and are you afraid that your doctor might suggest that you have surgery? If so, then we have good news for you. Unless your condition is very severe, most physicians will suggest that you try the least invasive and most conservative therapies first. These include pelvic floor retraining, lifestyle changes (such as weight loss, diet changes, and smoking cessation), bladder retraining, taking medication, using a pessary, and acupuncture. They may even suggest you try a combination of these therapies until you find what works to relieve your symptoms.

An interesting note about these conservative therapies is that they are more effective when used early on–that is, as soon as you notice the first signs of pelvic floor weakness. These therapies are effective for relieving symptoms of all three types of women’s urinary incontinence, as well as alleviating symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse and decreased sexual sensation. This information should definitely motivate you to seek medical help as soon as you begin experiencing problems with your pelvic health.

Overcoming Your Fear of Surgery
But what happens if conservative therapies are not effective for relieving your symptoms? In that case, you may need surgery to address the problem. If your condition is severe, such as when one or more of your pelvic organs have significantly shifted out of position (prolapsed), your physician may recommend surgery as the first step towards curing your condition. Or you may find that conservative therapies are effective for many years, but cease to work over time. This can occur because of aging, menopause, and the continued downward pull of gravity on your pelvic organs. In this case, you may also need surgery to alleviate symptoms that were formerly relieved by conservative therapies.

If your physician does recommend surgery, don’t hit the panic button just yet. We have some statistics about women’s pelvic surgeries that should help you breathe a sigh of relief, especially if you have a fear of surgery. We have categorized the different types of surgeries according to the condition treated, and we describe the level of invasiveness for each procedure as well as the success rate. Minimally-invasive surgeries are usually done as outpatient procedures, and you often go home the same day. Surgical procedures with a moderate level of invasiveness may require a short stay in the hospital.

Surgeries for Stress Urinary Incontinence
Number of Procedures: 6
Names: Transobturator tape, single-incision transobturator tape, tension-free vaginal tape, pubovaginal sling, Burch procedure, Marshall-Marchetti-Krantz procedure
Invasiveness: The first three procedures are minimally invasive, the last three are considered moderate.
Success Rates: No procedure has less than a 66% success rates, and most have success rates between 70% and 95%.

Surgeries for Overactive Bladder, Urge Urinary Incontinence, Urge-Dominant Mixed Incontinence, and Urinary Retention
Number of Procedures: 1
Name: Sacral neuro-modulation
Invasiveness: Minimal
Success Rates: 31% to 65%

Surgeries for Pelvic Organ Prolapse
Number of Procedures: 4
Names: Cystocele repair (bladder hernia), rectocele repair (large intestine hernia), enterocele repair (small intestine hernia), sacral colpopexy (vaginal vault prolapse)
Invasiveness: All are considered moderate
Success Rates: 80% to 96%

As you can see, almost all the surgeries have a very high success rate, and the majority are minimally-invasive. This list of women’s pelvic surgeries should give you a starting point for discussing your surgical options with your physician. If you have a significant fear of surgery or simply want to avoid surgery for any reason, you may wish to seek a second opinion from another specialist. Additionally, you may want to ask your physician whether a different type or a different combination of conservative therapies would be useful to try before having surgery. For many women, the first few conservative therapies tried are not completely successful at relieving symptoms. The women who have the most success with conservative therapies are those willing to try multiple approaches or multiple combinations of therapies until they find something that works. Persistence is often the key to success when working with conservative therapies.

If you ultimately decide to undergo surgery for your pelvic health condition, rest assured that success rates are high and most procedures pose a fairly low risk. Be sure to discuss any questions or concerns with your physician until you feel completely comfortable with any proposed surgery. In this case, educating yourself about your condition and your options is the best medicine!

 

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