Do You Have Trouble Holding Your Pee? According to 20 Million Women in the U.S., You’re Not Alone

Urinary incontinence is the involuntary loss of bladder control. The health condition can trigger anywhere from mild leakage of urine, to complete involuntary control of the entire bladder. Circumstances can get worse as women age and begin menopause, amongst other instances.

UI is heavily associated with the weakening of the pelvic floor muscles. Over a dozen of these muscles exist and support the bladder, uterus, and bowel on a day-to-day basis. The weaker they become, the more serious urinary incontinence may become.

The bladder health condition is prevalent among women that have just given birth to a child. In addition to childbirth, UI can affect women due to increased aging, hysterectomy procedures, diabetes, and elevated BMI’s.

The Different Types of Urinary Incontinence

As mentioned above, UI can affect women in a number of ways – anywhere from mild leakage to complete involuntary control of the entire bladder.

With that being said, there are different types of urinary incontinence. Below, you’ll find the three most popular, along with their triggers and/or causes.

• Stress UI – the inability to control bladder leakage when coughing, sneezing or performing physical activity.
• Urgency UI – the inability to control bladder leakage when there’s a strong urge to urinate.
• Mixed UI – involuntary urine loss due to the combination of stress UI and urgency UI. Most women that have mixed UI will experience symptoms from both sides.

If you are unsure if you suffer from UI, just visit http://www.pelvicscore.com/ to take a free quiz and rate your symptoms.

Is There Treatment for Urinary Incontinence?

Urinary incontinence is a health condition that currently affects over 20 million women in America. A percentage of those women deal with stress UI symptoms, another percentage of those women deal with urgency UI symptoms, and even still, another percentage of those women deal with the mixture of the two.

The month of November is known as Bladder Health Awareness Month. We are aware of how UI can affect women’s lives and wanted to shine some light on it for all of you.

If you’re currently experiencing urinary incontinence symptoms, it’s the time you learned a little bit about the various treatments and practices you can start doing to improve your bladder health.

Three of the best treatment options are briefly mentioned below. All options involve exercising the pelvic floor muscles.

• Physical Therapy – Physical therapists have a wide range of expertise. If you’re looking for an expert to help you perform the correct exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, the best person to go to aside from your doctor would be a physical therapist. In-office appointments are best, that way they can teach you in-person how to perform the techniques and they can observe to assure you that you’re following through with them correctly.
• At-Home Kegels – Kegels don’t have to be done in a physical therapists’ office; they can be done at home. We do recommend that you seek out a professional’s advice first, though. If you’re performing the technique at home and you’re not doing it right, you won’t get rid of your UI symptoms any time soon.
• leva – This FDA-cleared, prescription-only, intravaginal accelerometer-based device can help you perform pelvic floor exercises in the comfort of your home. The digital health therapeutic is programmed to mirror the motions of your pelvic floor, alerting you if you’re performing the techniques the right way to reach your goal on time. In as little as six weeks, you could be strengthening the necessary muscles to minimize your bladder leakage, and all it takes is 2 ½ minutes twice a day. Read more about leva as a UI treatment at knowleva.com.