Explaining Urinary Incontinence
Urinary incontinence involves the inability to control the flow of urine. This can range from small amounts of leakage with different activities, to full bladder emptying. Navigating urinary incontinence can greatly affect daily life, and may prevent you participating in daily activities. However, this isn’t an issue you have to live with forever! Through the help of a trained pelvic health physical therapist and other clinicians, you can gain the necessary strength and learn techniques to prevent urinary incontinence from affecting your life any further. There are four main types of urinary incontinence outlined below:
Stress Incontinence: While you may have heard that leaking a little after sneezing is something that, “just happens,’ to us as we age or after pregnancy, this actually can be addressed in pelvic health physical therapy! Stress incontinence is classified by the inability to control the flow of urine with increased intraabdominal pressure or higher impact activities. Leakage may be experienced with laughing, coughing, jumping, heavy lifting, or workouts. Through pelvic floor physical therapy, your physical therapist will work with you to increase your pelvic floor strength, implement breathing techniques, and improve your tolerance to managing these higher impact activities.
Urge Incontinence: Gotta go right now? If you consistently experience the sudden and intense need to urinate, and are going to the bathroom once an hour, these may be signs of urge incontinence. Urge incontinence occurs when the bladder tells the brain it’s time to urinate before it’s reached its full filling capacity. This may be a result of chronic “just in case” peeing, habitual bladder emptying too frequently, or bladder irritants. Bladder irritants are substances that aggravate the bladder and can increase the urge to void. Some of these substances include alcohol, caffeinated beverages, carbonated beverages, acidic foods or drinks, citrus fruits, chocolate, and spicy foods. Your physical therapist may implement the use of a bladder diary to track your voiding schedule and help you build better bladder habits. They can also give you techniques to suppress the urge in the moment, and help you increase the length of time between urinations.
Overflow Incontinence: Overflow incontinence occurs when you leak urine because your bladder is too full. It may feel at times that you haven’t completely emptied your bladder at the time of voiding. Overflow incontinence can be caused by a blockage in the urinary system, other medical conditions, or dysfunction of your pelvic floor muscles. Similar to urge incontinence, a physical therapist may help with bladder retraining and implement more scheduled voiding. Your therapist may also implement pelvic floor strengthening and voiding techniques to aid in more complete bladder emptying.
Functional Incontinence: Changes to your pelvic floor may result in different types of incontinence, however changes or injury to other areas of your body can also affect your ability to get to the bathroom in a timely manner. Factors that may affect your ability to make it the bathroom in time include general muscle weakness, poor balance and coordination, dysfunctional movement patterns, or even a cluttered household. Through physical therapy, you can regain the strength to move around more readily and independently.
While urinary incontinence can feel embarrassing and prevent you from enjoying events and activities, there is so much that can be done in pelvic health physical therapy to address and relieve this issue. If you are experiencing any symptoms of urinary leakage, contact us to schedule an appointment with a trained pelvic health physical therapist. Please call (312) 643-1555 or email [email protected].
