Urinary incontinence can impair the quality of your life, further, it will cause discomfort, anxiety, and embarrassment. Medical treatments are always there to treat your health issues, but in urinary incontinence, lifestyle modifications play a significant role in managing your signs and improving your quality of life. Further, let’s dive deeper into this blog to get several bonus tips to help you take control of urinary incontinence.
What is urinary incontinence?
In urinary incontinence (UI) you will accidentally lose urine, it can be either temporary or chronic, and also there are several types of incontinence. Urinary incontinence can affect you at any age, but women over the age of 50 are more prone to this. Many times urinary incontinence is the result of other underlying issues, and it is also a temporary condition.
What causes of urinary incontinence?
Also, you need to understand that urinary incontinence is not a common age-related issue, but elderly people are more prone to this. Often, the changes in your body functions due to medications and other illnesses cause urinary incontinence. At times, this is the primary indication of the body the presence of urinary tract infection. During or post-childbirth women will develop this issue, and a few women will develop urinary incontinence due to changes in hormones in the time of menopause.
What are the symptoms of urinary incontinence?
However, everyone experiences urinary incontinence in different ways, if you feel like your symptoms are getting worse consider getting urinary incontinence surgery in Coimbatore for a better outcome. Further, let’s see the common symptoms of urinary incontinence:
- Strong urge to use washrooms or start leaking urine if you don’t get to the washroom in time.
- Experiencing urine leakage when exercising or doing simple movements.
- Preventing your activities due to leakage of urine.
- When coughing, sneezing, or laughing, experience urinary leakage.
- Urine leakage that starts with surgery.
- Embarrassment due to leakage of urine.
- Persistent feeling of wetness without urinary leakage.
- Incomplete emptying of bladder.
Most of the time, urinary incontinence symptoms resemble other conditions, so reach out to your doctor for an accurate diagnosis and treatment.
What lifestyle changes can reduce urinary incontinence?
- Do pelvic floor exercises:
Practicing pelvic floor exercises daily will greatly reduce leaks. When doing pelvic floor exercises:
- Quickly squeeze your pelvic floor muscles, also try not to pull your tummy in.
- Hold it at least for 2 seconds.
- Relax your muscles and try doing it 10 times.
Try to relax and breathe normally when doing pelvic floor exercises. Focus on gradually increasing the hold for 10 seconds with each squeeze.
- Quit smoking:
You are at high risk of developing urinary incontinence if you are smoking because coughing adds strain to your pelvic floor muscles. So by quitting smoking, you can prevent yourself from urinary incontinence.
- Practicing proper exercise:
When doing high-intensity exercises and sit-ups adds more pressure on your pelvic floor muscles, and it will worsen your stress and incontinence. If you are planning to strengthen your pelvic floor and relieve symptoms, try doing mild to moderate exercises like aerobics and jogging. You can also prefer Pilates, which strengthens your core muscles.
- Avoid lifting:
When lifting weights, your pelvic floor muscles will be involved, so avoid lifting heavy objects. If you are in an unavoidable situation and need to lift children or shopping bags, tighten your pelvic floor muscles during the lift.
- Lose weight:
At times, your overweight will weaken your pelvic floor muscles and trigger urinary incontinence due to the pressure of fatty tissue on your bladder. When losing excess weight, you can relieve symptoms, and at times it can completely go away. To know your ideal weight, check your BMI.
- Treat constipation:
Your pelvic floor muscles will weaken when you are straining to poop, and your urinary incontinence will be worsened. Never control your urine, it may worsen your symptoms, also consider changing your lifestyle and diet when dealing with constipation. Consider eating more fiber and exercising daily, it will help you a lot. Further, try changing the way you sit and using your muscles to empty your bowels.
- Limit your caffeine intake:
Caffeine will irritate your bladder and worsen your urinary incontinence. Caffeine has the biggest effect, so consider quitting it or opting for decaffeinated coffee. Further, tea, green tea, hot chocolate, and energy drinks contain caffeine, so stop drinking these too, and replace them with herbal teas and water.
- Limit your alcohol consumption:
Binge alcohol consumption will make you often urinate, and this will worsen your urinary incontinence. So the first step to get relief from urinary incontinence symptoms is quitting smoking and consuming alcohol.
- Drink sufficient water:
Consider drinking 6 to 8 glasses of water every day. Typically, individuals with urinary incontinence fail to drink water often, because they feel like it causes more issues. However, insufficient water intake will worsen your urinary incontinence symptoms because it reduces your bladder’s capacity. Even insufficient water intake will worsen your constipation.
- Follow the appropriate diet:
Stay away from spicy and acidic foods like curries and citrus fruits, because they will irritate your bladder and worsen leaks and urinary incontinence.
If you feel like lifestyle changes are not helping you, reach out to the best gynecologist doctor in Coimbatore to effectively treat your specific condition.
Final thoughts:
In conclusion, we can say that, simple lifestyle modifications can make a world of difference in managing urinary incontinence. Right from dietary changes to pelvic floor exercises, find effective strategies to regain control and improve your quality of life.