Pelvic Health & Orthopedic Physical Therapy
Addressing your questions about pelvic, women's, and musculoskeletal health. Health is a journey. Movement is healing!
Do you ever laugh so hard a little pee just leaks out? Or maybe you are a cross-fit athlete and every time you do a lift you just leak a few drops. You just had a baby a few years ago and you never felt quite the same and now you notice when you gotta go to the bathroom you better start running or you end up with a little urine running down your leg. Maybe you constantly wear a pad or carry around extra panties due to fear of an accident.
Try as you might, you lose a little bit of pee, maybe it's even more than a small amount. This is called "urinary incontinence" when you unintentionally lose urine and there are a few different types. Stress Incontinence is when you accidentally lose pee. It can be with certain activities like coughing, sneezing, laughing, running, or when you stand up for sitting in a chair. These types of activities can change the pressure in your abdomen which influences your bladder and pelvic floor. If the muscles of your pelvic floor are weak they may have a difficult time staying closed to stop urine from coming down that urethra we talked about in the previous post. Urge Incontinence is when you accidentally lose urine with a strong urge to use the restroom. So you feel like you have to go to the bathroom and with the urge you lose control of your bladder and have a leak. The bladder has trained itself that it's time to go so you cannot wait. Oftentimes this is a mixture of pelvic floor musculature being both tight and weak. Functional Incontinence is when you physically cannot make it to the restroom so you have leakage. This could be that you are bed bound, unable transfer to the toilet on your own, or unable to unbutton your pants due to issues with dexterity in time causing loss in urine. So when does incontinence occur? Different types of incontinence can occur throughout different stages of life or with different conditions. Women commonly develop incontinence after giving birth and/ or after menopause. This can be due to the pelvic floor musculature going through changes as well as changes in hormones. And despite being told that this is "just old woman bladder" there is definitely techniques Physical Therapists can help you implement to better control your bladder. For men urinary incontinence and urgency can develop in individuals who have their prostate removed. Comments are closed.
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AuthorHello! I am Caitlyn, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Board Certified Women's Health Physical Therapist working in St Louis, Missouri. Faculty in developing residency program. Endowarrior Categories
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July 2021
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