Do You Control Your Bladder or Does it Control You?
Exploring Urinary Urgency and Frequency
Tired of having to stop every hour on your road trips?
Is your bladder constantly dictating your schedule?
Do you get to the store and immediately look for bathroom signs?
Are you guilty of the “just in case” pee before leaving the house?
Do you relate to any of these things? If so, I have great news for you - THIS IS FIXABLE!
Our bladder is a highly trainable organ. So when we empty it too often then it will slowly develop the urge to pee more often, leading to this terrible cycle that impacts your schedule and daily life. I’m here to share some tips on how to break this cycle and show your bladder who’s boss!
Step 1: Identify your triggers and patterns
Triggers are the things that cause you to feel like you have to pee - it could be running water, exercise, pulling into your driveway, leaving the house, arriving at a restaurant, etc.
Begin to notice how often you are peeing - is it every 30 min or every hour or every couple hours. Notice if you’re someone who holds it all day then is up all night going to the bathroom.
Step 2: Try these urge delay strategies when you experience a trigger or strong urge
Strategy 1: When you feel a strong urge to pee, STOP (don’t do the pee dance or sprint to the bathroom) and stand/sit still and do 5-10 slow deep breaths. Intentionally try to relax the muscles of the pelvic floor. If you’re not sure how - check out our blog post titled “Breathe”. Wait for a few minutes to let the urge signal calm down. Then after about 10 minutes slowly walk to the bathroom to empty your bladder once the urge has decreased.
Strategy 2: When you feel a strong urge to pee, STOP and stand/sit while doing 5-6 quick pelvic floor contractions (Kegel) or hold a contraction x 5-6 seconds then fully relax the pelvic floor and take a few deep breaths. Wait a few minutes for the urge signal to subside and after 10 minutes slowly walk to the bathroom to empty your bladder.
Both of these strategies work to target different mechanisms in the body and tell the bladder to calm down and allow more filling to take place. This process can take up to 10 minutes before the urge finally subsides so be patient, this takes time at first.
Step 3: Remove one “just in case pee” per day until you have completely avoided them
Only empty your bladder when you actually have to pee. The goal is to empty the bladder once every 2-4 hours or about 7-8 times/day. Use these urge delay strategies listed above to space out your voids a little at a time and reduce your need to respond urgently to all your triggers.
Step 4: Stick with it
This process can take time. You aren’t going to go from peeing once every 30 minutes to once every 2 hours right away. Use the urge delay strategies to increase the time between voids by 15 minutes at a time. Then once that is comfortable try adding 15 min more until you get to that normal interval. Use this also with your triggers. You can do it before the trigger hits and/or during. You’ll notice that overtime the bladder will be less sensitive and won’t give you the same urge when those triggers arise.
Give this stuff a try and see where you get! If this doesn’t fully work for you or you still have questions, schedule a free discovery call to learn more about what we do at Move + Smart to help clients take back control of their bladder function!
Written by Kelsey Karnes PT, DPT