Is your Bladder Running Your Life?

Urinary frequency and urgency are very common issues. If you’re usually going more often than that, or are always needing to know where the toilet is wherever you go, it is possible to train your bladder to be a better reservoir by using your pelvic floor muscles.

What is “overactive” bladder?

The bladder can become irritable or “overactive”, making you pee more often.  This could be due to habit, if you often empty the bladder before it is full. If your bladder never fills up, it doesn’t ever expand and can become smaller over time.  But this can be reversed! You can use your pelvic floor muscles to train your bladder to hold more urine before you need to pee.

It is important that you first get checked by your family doctor, and assuming there is no infection or other medical reason, you can get some help from a pelvic health physiotherapist, who has advanced training in working with pelvic floor muscles and other structures in that area.

What to do?

If you feel you need to urinate more than every 2 hours, try not to go with the first urge you feel.

When you do feel the urge to pee:

  • be still (standing or sitting) and tighten up through your pelvic floor muscles
  • try to distract your brain at the same time with something else

Doing this can help settle down the urge to urinate. If after a minute or two you still need to go, try to walk to the toilet slowly. If the urge to pee has settled down, try to delay going until you feel an urge again. Over time you are trying to lengthen the time between visits to the toilet.

A physiotherapist trained in pelvic health can help to improve these issues further, by listening to your own experience and making a plan forward that is individual to you. If you continue to struggle with urinary frequency or urgency, speak with your physio about this.

Prostate Issues are Not Just for your Grandpa

Prostate Issues are Not just for your Grandpa

Prostate cancer is often diagnosed in men in their 50s and 60s, but younger men can experience this as well.  About 40% of men diagnosed with cancer are low-risk, and will have “active surveillance” over time, but it should start with a blood test to see the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level.  If this is at all concerning, then it can be followed up with an MRI to see if a biopsy is even needed.

Often men will first have their PSA tested at age 50, but it is now recommended that a man has his first test in his mid-40s.  If the PSA level is low, then it needs to be repeated only every 5 years until about age 60.  Doctors are suggesting that healthy lifestyle choices might help to lessen the chance of developing prostate cancer—regular exercise, maintain a healthy weight and eating less animal fat.

For those who develop prostate cancer, it needs to be treated aggressively.  If a man has to have the prostate removed, better surgical techniques have been developed that allow sparing of the nerves that control the bladder for urination, as well as erection and ejaculation.  For several months after the surgery, almost every man will experience urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction, but pelvic floor physiotherapy can be helpful to return to a much better quality of life.

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that sling under the pelvis, and act as support and stability, as well as assisting as a sphincter.  These muscles work collectively, and are generally ignored by all until there is a problem with leaking urine.  Your pelvic physiotherapist can help you to make sure that you are engaging these muscles correctly and effectively, as well as teaching you how to manage the abdominal pressure changes that come with coughing, sneezing laughing or moving around.

There is much that can be done, and seeing a physiotherapist who practices pelvic health can get you back on the road to full function quickly.