3 Simple Ways To Get A Grip On Your Bladder

BIO:

Since 2002, Dr. Tejal Ramaiya has been helping athletes and active adults get back to the workouts and training they’re missing out on when everything else has let them down. Since she graduated with her Master’s in Physical Therapy in 2002 and then her Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2004 from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, she has been working with active adults on a daily basis. The majority of her clientele are triathletes but she also really enjoys working with active adults, Golfers, Yogis, Pilates enthusiasts, CrossFitters and High School Athletes.

Over the years, she has earned a number of specialized certifications which make her well equipped to work with this active population. Some of these include:

Certification in Strength and Conditioning Trigger Point Dry Needling

Kinesiotaping Graston technique

Titleist Performance Institute Golf Fitness Professional

Functional Movement Screening and Selective Functional Movement Assessment

When not at work, she enjoys hiking, chilling at the beach, and taking fun vacations with her family.

Introduction

Do you suffer from involuntary loss of urine, or incontinence? Maybe you are out to dinner and drinks with old friends and need to excuse yourself after laughing at a nostalgic story to dry off in the bathroom. Maybe you find yourself needing to change immediately after getting home from running errands because you got your key in your door and lost control of your bladder because you knew the toilet was so near. Millions of people experience this ranging from just a drop to enough that you need a change of pants. Just because it is common does not make it normal. Here are some quick tips to help you regain control of your bladder.

1. TO KEGEL OR NOT TO KEGEL…

1. Do you leak when you laugh, sneeze, cough, jump, or lift heavy objects? Did this worsen after you had children? You are likely suffering from stress incontinence, which is defined as a loss of urine with activities that put stress on your bladder. Activities such as running, jumping, lifting, coughing and sneezing will create a downward pressure (stress) on the pelvic floor. When there is an insufficiency in pelvic floor muscles it may result in leakage of urine. Insufficiency can occur from muscles that are either activating too much or not enough.
2. Most women who experience leaking assume their pelvic floor muscles are weak. In most cases, weakness is NOT the cause of leakage. Many women actually hold tension in their pelvic floor muscles. This tension makes it hard for the muscles to contract when you have to hold urine and relax when you have to urinate. The best way to decrease the tension in the muscles of the pelvic floor is to breathe! When we breathe in, our diaphragm and pelvic floor stretch downward to make room for our lungs to fill. That downward motion creates length through the tissues and gives a gentle stretch to the area. Diaphragmatic breathing also helps promote relaxation, which can help to decrease tension in our pelvic floor as well.
3. Some women may experience stress incontinence if their muscles are not contracting enough or contracting when they need them to. If you have been evaluated by a pelvic floor physical therapist and are considered a candidate for pelvic floor strengthening, performing kegels in isolation is often not enough. Adding strengthening for the core and hip muscles and working on coordination and timing of contractions is essential for treating incontinence. In other words, kegels are not a cure all.

2. I GOTTA GO AND I GOTTA GO NOW

1. Do you have a hard time holding it when you have a strong urge to urinate? Have you ever gotten to your front door and had to frantically fumble with your keys and rush to the bathroom, even though you didn’t have the sensation to urinate even just 5 minutes before? You are likely suffering from urge incontinence, which is defined as leakage when you have a strong sensation of needing to urinate.
2. One strategy to alleviate the severity of urge incontinence is called ‘Quick Flicks’. You will perform a series of 5-6 consecutive kegel contractions which can decrease the sensation of needing to urinate and affords you more time to make it to the bathroom. Not sure how to do a kegel? If you know how to do a kegel, do you know if you’re performing it correctly? Your pelvic floor physical therapist will be able to evaluate this and help coach you to be sure you are properly engaging the pelvic floor. More importantly, your therapist will ensure that you are a candidate for kegels. For some patients, doing kegels can actually perpetuate or worsen their current symptoms and would benefit from a different exercise approach entirely.

3. YOU READ MY DIARY?

Perhaps the biggest tool at your disposal is a bladder diary. Keeping track of your food and drink intake, how often you are using the bathroom, how often you are not quite making it to the bathroom, and your activities throughout the day can help paint a picture of what triggers may be affecting your incontinence. If you feel comfortable sharing, a pelvic floor PT will be able to look at your bladder diary and point out patterns and triggers for you.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER

We make every effort to ensure that we accurately represent the injury advice and prognoses dis- played throughout this Report. However, examples of injuries and their prognosis are based on typical representations of those injuries that we commonly see in our Physical Therapy clinics. The information given is not intended as representations of every individual’s potential injury. As with any injury, each person’s symptoms can vary widely and each person’s recovery from injury can also vary depending upon background, genetics, previous medical history, application of exercises, posture, motivation to follow Physical Therapist advice and various other physical factors. It is impossible to give a 100% completely accurate diagnosis and prognosis without a thorough physical examination and likewise the advice given for management of an injury cannot be deemed fully accurate in the absence of this examination from one of the physical therapists at Body Moksha Physical Therapy. We are able to offer you this service FREE of any charge. Significant injury risk is possible if you do not follow due diligence and seek suitable professional advice about your injury. No guarantees of specific results are expressly made or implied in this report.