Your Ultimate Guide to Urinary Incontinence

Do you sneeze or cough and then pee your pants? Do you leak urine as you are rushing to the toilet? If you answered yes to either of those questions, this guide is for you.

Although urinary incontinence is common, it is not considered normal. Pelvic health physical therapy is effective for achieving lasting relief from urinary leakage.

4 Main Types of Urinary Incontinence

There are four main types of leakage including stress incontinence, urge incontinence, overflow incontinence, and functional incontinence.

• Stress incontinence: leakage with laugh, cough, sneeze, or exercise

• Urge incontinence: having a strong urge to urinate and leakage associated with this strong urge, usually precipitated by certain triggers such as running water or when you put your key in the door

• Functional incontinence: decreased physical or mental capacity limits your ability to get to the toilet on time

• Overflow incontinence: dribbling of urine throughout the day due to your bladder getting too full either from not urinating often enough or due to not completely emptying your bladder when toileting

So how do I stop peeing my pants?

Here are some quick, easy tips for reducing leakage immediately.

1. Feeling a cough, sneeze, or laugh coming on? Start a kegel right before the event, and maintain the kegel throughout the event.

2. Leakage can also be reduced by activating your parasympathetic or calming center of your nervous system. If you have a strong urge to pee, take 3 deep breaths. Distract yourself by scrolling through social media or by performing a math challenge in your head. Finally, walk CALMLY to the toilet so that you keep the calming part of your nervous system engaged.

3. Stop holding your breath. When you get up from a chair, make sure you perform an exhale so you do not put excess strain on your pelvic floor. If you are performing squats, make sure to breath throughout the exercise. If you are rolling over in bed, exhale with the roll. This will help limit leakage.

4. When you get a strong urge to urinate, perform 5 hard kegels. When your pelvic floor muscles are activated, your bladder turns off and buys you more time to get to the bathroom.

Lasting Relief for Urinary Leakage

The key to resolving urinary leakage is to get to the root cause of the problem. Most people assume that leakage is due to pelvic floor weakness. Some doctors even make this assumption and tell patients: "just do kegels." However, leakage can be due to a variety of reasons.

Although leakage can be due to weak pelvic floor muscles, it can also be due to overly tight pelvic floor muscles. An overly tight pelvic floor can cause the bladder to spasm and release urine. Leakage can be due to frail, vulvar tissues due to low estrogen levels from menopause or breastfeeding. Leakage can be due poor internal pressure management, such as breath holding patterns during movements.

The only way to get to the root cause is to get evaluated by a pelvic floor physical therapist that does a full body evaluation, including an examination of your pelvic floor. Patients can achieve full resolution of leakage by addressing the root cause with their pelvic health physical therapist.

Author: Dr. Madison Roth, owner of Inspire Pelvic Physical Therapy