Martha was having lunch with her friends. The restaurant was cold. Martha had had a tall glass of iced tea. She and her friends had been talking and laughing when it happened.
She had felt the urge to visit the restroom but didn’t feel it was so urgent until it happened. Around her chair was a pool of urine, and just then, she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
This had happened before at home, and each time, she never knew how it happened, even though she tried so hard to control it. These embarrassing moments were getting to be more frequent.
Why was this happening?
Urinary incontinence affects about 25 million people, out of which 75% are women. According to the National Institute of Aging, there are several reasons for incontinence, ranging from a urinary tract infection to a weak or overactive bladder.
There are different reasons why people suffer from incontinence, of which stress or too much excitement are key reasons. It can happen because you are not able to wait until you reach a restroom.
We may experience these episodes more frequently as we age. An overflow occurs when a little urine leaks out whenever you cough or sneeze. You can experience incontinence due to functional issues, like when a debilitating disease such as arthritis slows you down, preventing you from reaching the restroom in time.
Irrespective of the reason for incontinence, medical science is quickly advancing and helping people to gain better control over their bladder and to stop embarrassing leaks.
Want to know more?
In this blog, we’ll discuss some pointers on how to manage incontinence and provide several treatments to counter your condition.
Supporting Your Incontinence Treatment Plan
Combining therapies is frequently the most effective way to manage incontinence. Here are some more pointers to help any incontinence treatments plans succeed as much as possible.
Employ Absorbent Products:
Confident and covert protection may be obtained with youth diapers or specialty underwear. These days, brands provide pleasant and useful goods that let you feel safe in social situations.
Be Consistent:
For long-term gains, it’s important to continue exercising and making dietary changes on a regular basis.
Seek Support:
Do not be afraid to contact loved ones, counselors, or support groups. Although dealing with incontinence can be lonely, talking to people who are going through similar things can offer support and helpful guidance.
Monitor Your Symptoms:
You and your healthcare practitioner can better customize therapies if you keep a note of your urination patterns, triggers, and improvements.
10 Ways to Treat Incontinence
Here are 10 ways you can treat incontinence.
- Going to the bathroom at timed intervals, also known as timed voiding. You make a pre-scheduled trip to the bathroom every 60 or 90 minutes. This way, you avoid accidents that usually happen due to “urgency.”
- Take out time from your daily schedule for Kegel or pelvic exercises. The Kegel muscles are the ones you use to stop urinating. Kegel exercises help to strengthen these muscles so that you are able to hold urine longer.
- Biofeedback may help you regain control over your bladder and urethra by using sensors to help you become aware of signals from your body. They can be useful when you do pelvic exercises as well so that you know which muscles to exercise.
- Lose a few pounds. A 6-month randomized clinical trial in 338 overweight and obese women showed a 47% decrease in mean weekly total incontinence episodes in the intervention group versus 28% in the control group, primarily due to a reduction in stress incontinence episodes. The control group was under a structured education program that provided them with an instructional booklet on how to lose weight. The intervention group followed a behavioral weight loss program that provided participants with more help in the form of therapy and a structured protocol that was designed to produce an average loss of 7% to 9% of initial body weight within 6 months. You can read more about the study here.
- If you are a smoker, studies show that quitting smoking can help support better bladder control. In fact, a study shows that smoking increases the risk of bladder and kidney cancers as well as incontinence and infertility.
- Reduce your caffeine intake. The findings from a recent study lead scientists to believe that a quarter of the women with the highest level of caffeine consumption could reduce their episodes of incontinence by eliminating their caffeine intake. People who consume 4 to 10 cups of caffeinated beverages a day are said to have a high intake.
- Fluid management. Too much liquid or even too little fluid consumption can have the worst effect on bladder control. Alternate the amount of fluids you drink daily to determine how much you need to drink and how much to avoid.
- Your doctor may prescribe bladder training. They may also ask you to combine this 6-week training program with pelvic floor muscle training if you have mixed urinary incontinence. The training involves learning techniques to improve the length of time between feeling the need to urinate and passing urine.
- Your doctor may prescribe medicine to help you control incontinence. The type of medicines your doctor would advise you to take would depend on the type of incontinence you suffer from.
- If none of the above work for you, your doctor will show you several surgical options that include sling procedures, bladder neck suspensions, prolapse surgery or the use of an artificial urinary sphincter.
Additional Strategies and Adjustments
Here are some more tactics and modifications that can increase your overall control and impact your day-to-day life.
1. Explore Physical Therapy Options
Physical therapists can help you with specific exercises, including manual methods and biofeedback-guided treatment that are designed to strengthen the pelvic floor.
Under the supervision of a qualified specialist, these movements go beyond the typical Kegel exercises and enable you to target particular muscles more successfully.
2. Experiment with Different Positions and Techniques
For some kinds of incontinence, shifting positions while peeing might be helpful.
One way to facilitate bladder emptying and lessen the need to urinate right away is to sit with your feet flat on the floor, lean slightly forward, and relax your abdomen.
Various methods, such as “double voiding”—using the restroom twice in a short period of time—can guarantee that the bladder is completely emptied.
3. Use Acupressure and Acupuncture
Traditional Chinese medical practices like acupuncture and acupressure have demonstrated the potential to ease the symptoms of incontinence. In acupressure, particular body spots that are believed to control bladder function are stimulated.
Fine needles are used at these locations using a similar method called acupuncture. Some patients report significant gains in bladder control using these techniques. However, a study is still underway.
4. Adjust Your Diet Further
Some people with incontinence may benefit from restricting spicy meals, acidic fruits, and carbonated beverages in addition to cutting back on alcohol and caffeine. These things may cause more urgency and frequency by irritating the bladder lining.
Water, herbal teas, and meals high in fiber are bladder-friendly options that support digestive health and lower the chance of constipation, which can make bladder issues worse.
5. Examine Bladder Devices and Supports
Vaginal pessaries are devices that support the bladder and urethra to stop leaks in women who suffer from stress incontinence.
A healthcare professional can customize these. Comparably, urethral inserts or plugs are tiny, tampon-like devices that temporarily stop urine flow during activities that might cause leaks.
6. Include Supplements That Are Bladder-Friendly
It is believed that several supplements, including vitamin D, magnesium, and pumpkin seed extract, promote bladder health.
For instance, research has indicated that magnesium may assist some people in managing their muscles and lessen bladder spasms, while pumpkin seed extract may enhance bladder function by promoting the health of the muscles.
Your healthcare physician should always be consulted before beginning any supplement regimen.
Empower Your Journey to Comfort and Confidence
These 10 and other additional practical tips can help improve bladder control and avoid those embarrassing moments, and while you are on your way to gaining victory, you could use our award-winning adult diapers to avoid accidents and never face an embarrassing moment again.
Our Wellness diapers, adult incontinence pads, and mens pads for leakage are designed using the same principles of technology used by NASA. They’re designed to absorb wetness and tuck it away in a separate layer so that you feel dry and comfortable the whole day.
Our skin friendly diapers are environment-friendly, odor-free and 70% more cost-effective than buying other popular brands. Take a look at all our best incontinence pads for heavy leakage. You can even try a free sample as well.
