No matter how common urinary incontinence is, it always puts the sufferer in an embarrassing position.
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However, the good news is that your symptoms can be improved and you can cope with the everyday challenges of the condition.
Millions of people of all ages and genders are affected by urinary incontinence.
It occurs even in teenagers and when a teenager is affected s/he is at an increased risk of underperforming at high school.
Women usually are affected by stress urinary incontinence for minimum one year after childbirth.
Several women say that a weak bladder holds them back from participating in sports or makes them discontinue altogether.
In men, older men are more affected by stress urinary incontinence.
Urinary incontinence occurs due to loss of control over urinary bladder and causes urine leakage. This is a widespread problem. But as mentioned earlier, symptoms can be reduced. Here are a few tips.
1. Practise Pelvic Floor Exercises
Pelvic floor is a layer of muscles that supports your bowel and bladder. If it becomes weak, urine can leak out while laughing, coughing or sneezing.
You need to visit restroom frequently or feel an urge to visit the bathroom and leak on the way.
Sometimes called Kegel exercises, pelvic floor exercises are designed to strengthen your muscles, improve bladder control, support your organs and prevent urine leakage.
In the research conducted by comparing the exercise with no treatment, it was found that those who performed Kegels were 2.5-17 times more likely to entirely recover from the condition.
It was also found in the research that adding dance to pelvic floor exercise increased the chances of success.
2. Train Bladder
As such, you have an excellent option of expert incontinence surgery from My Continence for the management of urinary incontinence.
But for non-surgical management of the condition, it’s recommended by healthcare experts to train bladder and perform pelvic floor exercises.
Bladder training aims at increasing the duration between urinating. It’s a behavioral therapy in which muscles controlling the bladder can be strengthened just as you work out on your biceps and quadriceps.
Patients with urinary incontinence usually develop a habit of going to bathroom too frequently to make sure urine is not leaked when they are out.
However this habit worsens the condition by making the bladder habituated to hold less urine and makes it overactive and over-sensitive.
During the treatment for urinary incontinence in Australia by My Continence, for example, bladder training can help bladder to hold more urine, prevent it from being overactive and thus reduce urinary incontinence.
3. Have a Healthy BMI
Being overweight or obese increases the risk of developing urinary incontinence. Studies show that in women having the highest BMI, urinary incontinence is more prevalent than in those with the lowest.
Moreover, women who tried to reduce the BMI at least by 5 percent lowered the chances of experiencing the condition than those who lost less weight.
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BMI can be reduced with the following ways:
- Reduce calorie intake against calories you spend (how active you are)
- Increase fiber intake
- Reduce processed food, saturated fats, sugary snacks and refined grains
- Increase consumption of vegetables and fruits
- Brisk walk for at least 30 minutes for 5 days a week
Follow these tips and you can save yourself from the difficult situations.
