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Continence Problems Can Begin with Weak Pelvic Floor Muscles

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

While continence is rarely ever considered when you are young and healthy, as you get older continence problems begin to loom large. Women are affected with continence problems in greater numbers than men, largely as a side effect of pregnancy and childbirth. However, while pregnancy and childbirth increase the risk of having continence problems, they also arm women with the tools for maintaining continence health. Men, on the other hand, are really never forced to think about that region of their body, from a maintenance standpoint, until they are much older, and then they have a lot of catching up to do.

While women have had to deal with rebuilding that region of their bodies after childbirth, they are much more familiar with all of the working parts, including the pelvic floor muscles in particular. These muscles, which stretch from the tail bone up to the pubic bone, are what supports all of your pelvic organs including your bladder and bowel. When these muscles are young and healthy, they help to keep the bladder and bowel outlets closed tightly preventing any accidental leakage. With age, illness or injury the pelvic floor muscles can weaken causing them to relax allowing the bladder and bowel to empty. Once these muscles become weak, the ability to hold back the flow of urine or keep from passing wind during physical activity is diminished.

The good news is that like any muscles in your body that become weak, you can exercise to rebuild the muscles and regain the suppleness and strength that they once had. The more that you use these muscles, the better they will work for you, but first you have to find them.

Women generally find these muscles as they are instructed in Kegel exercises during pregnancy and childbirth, so even though these muscles get beaten up during the process of child bearing, women are generally aware of these muscles and how to exercise them to keep them in good working order. The easiest way to find these muscles is to stop the flow of urine mid stream the next time that you are going to the bathroom. These are the pelvic floor muscles in action. Once you have identified the muscles you can begin doing Kegel exercises to get them strong.

As you begin consciously using your pelvic floor muscles you can remember to tighten them when you are engaged in other strenuous activities or workouts. Even as you go through everyday activities like lifting, bending, laughing, sneezing or coughing, engaging your pelvic floor muscles will help to support your bladder and bowel. If your muscles are very weak, it is easiest to begin exercising them in a sitting position, but as they grow stronger, you can engage them while standing as well.

As you are working out the muscles of your pelvic floor, realize that it will take from three to six months for you really see an improvement in the functioning of the muscles. Once your muscles are strong again, like any muscle in your body, use it or lose it. So plan to fit your Kegel exercises into a regular workout routine that works for your schedule.

If you are not sure where to begin with your pelvic floor exercises, you may want to enlist the services of a physiotherapist who has experience with continence issues, and they can design a workout schedule that suits your needs. To help manage your continence problems as you follow your workout schedule, find appropriate supplies that work well for you. There are many, quality selections available in either washable or disposable styles, and you can use the product that you need when you need it. DryForLife has a full line of products for continence care ranging from light to heavy levels of absorbency. You can order the products from the privacy of your home and have them delivered there as well.

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Bladder Weakness in Women is not Necessarily a Permanent Condition

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

All too often bladder weakness in women is seen as an inevitable part of ageing. It is also considered just plain embarrassing, which causes far too many women to never bother seeking help for their symptoms. This embarrassment is unfortunate, because four out of five incontinence cases can be completely cured.

While age, childbirth and menopause are factors that increase the risk of urinary incontinence in women, these factors do not guarantee that a woman will suffer from bladder weakness. Urinary incontinence occurs in women when they cannot control their bladder, and any number of things can cause this condition. For women, pregnancy and childbirth are two of the biggest threats to continence, and other factors like surgery, infection, genetics or injury can also cause the problem.

You cannot dictate whether or not damage occurs to your pelvic floor muscles when circumstances are out of your control such as in the case of injury, genetics, surgery or childbirth. However, there are some things that you can do to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to staving off bladder weakness as you age.

If you are overweight, you are putting additional pressure on the muscles of the pelvic floor, which eventually leads to bladder weakness. So, one of the best ways to let nature work in your favor is to give it a helping hand. By eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise and exercising your pelvic floor muscles regularly, you are giving yourself a fighting chance of maintaining bladder health.

Kegel exercises, which you practice when you are preparing for childbirth, are a great way to maintain strength in your pelvic floor muscles. You are exercising the same muscles that you use to stop the flow of urine mid stream, and by keeping these muscles in good shape, you are keeping the muscles that support your internal organs strong. Keeping these muscles fit not only helps your urinary health, but it helps properly support all of your internal organs.

So while bladder weakness in women may occur at some point in their lives, most of the time, with proper treatment and care, it is only a temporary condition. And as you are working to find a solution for your bladder weakness problem, there are a variety of incontinence products available, which come in many different sizes and absorbencies. Some companies, like DryForLife, even deliver them discreetly right to your front door.

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Incontinence and Alternative Medicine Offer Sensible Solutions for Managing Incontinence

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

The causes of incontinence are numerous and varied, and so are the treatments. Incontinence can be treated or at least managed by many different methods as well. Sometimes a simple behavioral change is enough to alleviate the symptoms of urinary incontinence, and other times medication or surgery may be indicated. If you are dealing with incontinence, you may want to consider supporting your doctor’s recommendations with a natural or alternative medicine.

It is also a good idea to add regular Kegel exercises to your incontinence and alternative medicine efforts. By combining biofeedback, exercise, acupuncture and traditional medicine, you are setting yourself up for success when it comes to managing your urinary incontinence.

Biofeedback helps you understand what you are feeling when you flex your muscles, and what your body is telling you. It can be used to help you perform effective pelvic floor muscle exercises, and it can also help you control your bladder muscles.

Kegel exercises are the exercises that contract your pelvic floor muscles. By performing Kegel exercises correctly and contracting and releasing your pelvic floor muscles, you can strengthen these muscles to help you regain continence. The pelvic floor muscles are important because they support the bladder, urethra and uterus if you are a woman.

Other exercises like yoga and pilates, when practiced correctly can be very helpful for strengthening the muscles of the pelvic floor, which makes both of these exercise disciplines very valuable when it comes to managing urinary incontinence.

Acupuncture has also proven effective in relieving symptoms of urinary incontinence, because it helps to tone muscles and increases the blood flow to the bladder. Acupuncture can also restore hormone balance, reduce inflammation and give the immune system a boost.

Nutrition also plays an important part in maintaining urinary continence. Aside from maintaining a healthy weight, you will want to eliminate foods that can irritate the bladder like acidic foods, such as tomato and grapefruit, caffeine, alcohol, sweetener substitutes, sugar and spicy foods. If you are not sure which foods have an adverse effect on you, keep a food diary and see if any patterns emerge between what you ingest and your incontinence problems.

Incontinence and alternative medicine are a natural fit, and as you are working through the solution to your problem, absorbant pads can free you from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. They come in many different sizes and absorbencies to deal with any problem from mild to severe. They protect clothing and furniture, and they offer protection from skin irritation. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads, which may be ordered online and delivered discreetly right to your front door.

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Bladder Weakness in Women More Common than you Think

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

There are many embarrassing moments caused by bladder weakness in women, and bladder incontinence is still an untouched subject. Because of the hush-hush nature of bladder incontinence, there is a lot of incorrect information floating around on the subject.

In the UK by the age of thirty-five one quarter of all women have experienced some sort of bladder weakness symptoms. Only about half of the talk to their doctors about their problem, while the rest suffer in silence. The average time that a woman waits before getting some sort of help is about fifteen years.

Bladder weakness in women can occur for many different reasons with pregnancy and childbirth right at the top of the list. Obesity, constipation and nerve damage can also cause the problem, and menopause can be a culprit as well. Frequently women who suffer from bladder weakness may withdraw from life a little passing up on traveling, exercising and even sex.

There are three types of bladder weakness in women, and they are as follows:

Stress incontinence, or unexpected leakage, can happen anytime undue pressure is exerted on the bladder, which can happen from coughing, laughing, exercise, sneezing or picking up something heavy.

Overflow incontinence occurs when the bladder does not empty all the way, which causes urine to continually build up and dribble out as if the bladder is overflowing.

Urge incontinence presents itself with a sudden strong urge to pass urine. With urge incontinence the bladder tries to empty itself despite a woman’s attempt to restrain the flow.

One of the conditions that all three of these problems frequently share making an environment ripe for incontinence is weak pelvic floor muscles. One of the functions of these muscles is to keep the urethra closed. As they become less elastic over time the slightest amount of undue pressure like laughing or coughing can be enough to cause leakage. There is good news though. Just because these muscles are weak now, does not mean that they have to be weak forever.

There are exercises that a woman can do to help restore the vibrancy of her pelvic floor muscles, and they are called Kegel exercises. Any woman who has had a baby has heard of them, and if you have not had a baby, and you are suffering from incontinence, see your medical professional, because they can instruct you about the proper way to do your Kegel exercises.

In a nutshell, these exercises work on the same muscles that you would engage to stop the flow of urine midstream, so this can give you an idea of which muscles you would be conditioning. While it takes a while for a woman to realize the results of her pelvic floor exercises, up to six months, if she is diligent and patient she is almost guaranteed to see an improvement in her bladder weakness condition.

If you suffer from bladder weakness in women, as you are working to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, incontinence pads can free you from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. They come in many different sizes and absorbencies to deal with any problem from mild to severe and protect skin, clothing and furniture. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads, which may be ordered online and delivered discreetly right to your front door.

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Can Chiropractic Treatment Help Retain Adult Continence?

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Since good posture is one of the factors that helps preserve adult continence, the question comes to mind, can chiropractic treatment help keep you continent? With even the tiniest changes is posture severely affecting everything in your body, it makes sense that if your backbone is tight or crooked, as you get older you may begin to have problems with adult continence.

Not only does your posture affect your back, neck, knees and even breathing, it also affects the alignment of your pelvis, which houses all of your internal organs. If the angle of your pelvis is slightly off, then your organs including your bladder, may not be properly supported.

When you are young, your pelvic floor muscles are generally strong enough to compensate for bad posture, so you may never give the chiropractor a second thought. As you age, however, and the tissues throughout your body weaken, unfortunately that will include the muscles of your pelvic floor as well. This is where you may want to stack the deck in your favor with good posture.

By maintaining good posture as you age, you may be able to maintain your continence much longer than you ever expected. Of course you will want to keep your core muscles as strong as possible, but incontinence typically responds well to the pressure relieving benefits of a good chiropractic adjustment. To understand why an adjustment works, you will want to consider for a moment what is actually happening during the adjustment.

When the Chiropractor makes adjustment to your spine it can affect your entire body. The spinal cord meets the brain and this makes up your entire nervous system, which controls everything in your body. These nerves control all motor movements, and this includes urination. So if understand that the central nervous system is actually protected by the backbone and the skull, it may begin to make sense why adjusting your backbone can help keep you from becoming incontinent.

When a Chiropractor makes the adjustment to a joint in your backbone, he may be relieving pressure on one of your nerves, which may have suffered bad communication with the brain as a result of the pinching pressure. When the pressure is relieved, normal communication is restored, and with normal communication comes normal body function.

Since urinary incontinence can be caused by improper nerve function, and adjusting the backbone can correct the function of the nerve, it turns out that having a well-adjusted spine along with your good posture can really help you stave off the onset of adult urinary incontinence. Even with weakening muscles as you age, having all of the nerves running along your backbone properly functioning can give help you to retain or even regain your adult continence.

If you are suffering from incontinence, pads can help you live your life free of worry. They come in a great variety of shapes, sizes, and absorbencies to deal with mild to severe incontinence. They afford you comfort and protection from skin irritation, and are invaluable in protecting clothing and furniture. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads allowing you the freedom to live your life fully.

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Urinary Incontinence in Women Increases with Age

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

As women age, they begin to have problems with some sort of urine leakage, and the incidence of urinary leakage seems to increase with age. While at first glance it may seem ordinary that any physical problem gets worse with age, perhaps women should not just accept this statistic as their inevitable future.

Why does urinary incontinence increase in women as they age?

1. Trauma – A major factor that many women have to deal with is the trauma that their body has endured going through childbirth. While some urinary incontinence in women may be immediate, other times the damage takes a while to manifest itself. Not only childbirth, but the pull of gravity on a woman’s pelvic organs can cause the bladder, uterus or bowel to shift out of their correct position causing increased pressure on the pelvic floor muscles, which can lead to urinary incontinence. Also as tissues weaken with age more problems begin.
2. Hormones – As women age their estrogen levels drop, and after menopause the levels begin declining even faster. Lower estrogen levels cause connective tissues to weaken. These connective tissues are a prominent part of the pelvic floor muscles, and as they weaken, they take the strength of the pelvic floor with them. The pelvic floor muscles offer support to a woman’s internal organs and help to control urine flow, so with weakened muscles comes urinary incontinence in women.
3. Exercise – Frequently as women age, they naturally become less active. With the decrease in activity, muscles become flabby, and the pelvic floor muscles are no exception. Exercise can help stave off many problems as women age, like urinary incontinence, if women make some lifestyle changes before it is too late.

While nature seems to be against women as they age, if they take care to maintain a healthy lifestyle including a well rounded diet and adequate exercise, they can actually hold their ground against Mother Nature. Though there may be times that illness or injury cause problems that women simply have to accept, it is nice to know that for the affects of simple aging women can paint their own bright future by heeding some simple and practical advice, eat well and exercise.

Incontinence pads can allow any woman who is suffering from urinary incontinence the security to live their lives free of worry. The pads come in a great variety of shapes, sizes, and absorbencies to deal with mild to severe incontinence, and they afford the wearer comfort and protection from skin irritation while protecting furniture and clothing. DryForLife supplies a complete line of incontinence pads allowing persons who have incontinence the freedom to live their lives fully.

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Posture and Urinary Incontinence

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Posture and Urinary Incontinence

Do you remember how your mother always reminded you to stand up straight? And for just an instant you would engage all muscles, perk up straight as an arrow, and as soon as she was gone, so was your good posture. Well, as it turns out, once again, your mother really did know best.

If you have ever taken a pilates class there is much discussion about holding your spine in a neutral position. To do this you have to use your core muscles, or the tiny muscles along the spine. Sadly, in many people, these muscles are sorely underutilized, but the good news is that they can be rebuilt fairly quickly.

Subtle changes in your posture can dramatically affect all parts of your body including back, neck and knees. It can even affect your breathing, and when it comes to continence, it affects the tilt of your pelvis, which in turn determines the position of your internal organs. The bones of your pelvis are designed to help support your pelvic floor muscles, which keep you continent. However, if your back and pelvis are out of alignment, then your pelvic floor muscles are not getting the support that they need.

If you have extremely strong pelvic floor muscles, then you may be able to sneak by with poor posture, but as you age and your muscles weaken, you are destined for problems. Your good posture begins from the bottom and ends with your head and shoulders. Often, when someone catches themselves slouching, they straighten out their head and shoulders. To really stand up straight, you want to start where your feet hit the ground.

Make sure that you have equal weight on each foot. Close your eyes and feel how you are standing. Now slightly bend your knees, just enough so that they are not locked. Your pelvis should be straight, not tipping forward or backwards. You should notice that your midsection naturally tightened to hold your spine in place. Now put your hands on your head and move your elbows out over your shoulders. Then gently let your arms fall open to your side with your palms facing outward. This will align your head and shoulders.

Stand for a moment with your eyes closed and notice how this stance feels, because this is what your mother was talking about. So as you travel through your day and notice that you are slouching, take a minute to straighten yourself out. In time, good posture will become a habit, and the cards will be stacked in your favor for avoiding any unnecessary urinary incontinence as you age.

If you are already dealing with incontinence problems, improving your posture may help you regain proper urinary function, and while you and your health care professional work to solve your problem, you will want to get through your ordeal with the help of good quality incontinence products. DryForLife offers a discreet and completely confidential solution to all your incontinence needs. We have been providing quality incontinence products for over forty years, and we are here to help.

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Biofeedback Helps Reduce Urinary Leakage after Prostate Surgery

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

One of the common side effects of prostate surgery in men is urinary leakage. It can take up to six months for the symptoms to subside, and for about twenty percent of patients it can take even longer. Physical therapists have noted that behavioral training has been very successful in decreasing the length and severity of the incontinence that can occur after prostate surgery. There is also some indication that behavioral training before surgery might also help speed full recovery.

Behavioral training consists of a biofeedback session where men learn to control bladder muscles. They also get instruction for doing proper muscle exercises to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor. Doctors used a rectal balloon probe to measure the muscle response in their patients, so that they can verify that the patient is doing the exercise correctly. The probe also gives the doctor and patient instant visual feedback showing the patient’s success.

Doctors studied two groups of post surgery patients. One group was using biofeedback and doing the exercises to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, and the other group was not. In the group of patients that were using biofeedback their average time to regaining full continence was about three and a half months. For the group that was not exercising over half of the men were still having problems with incontinence after six months.

There is a direct correlation between how early and how actively the patient engages in his pelvic floor muscle exercise regimen and how quickly he regains full continence after surgery. So if you are facing prostate surgery, make sure to talk to your doctor about biofeedback and regular exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.

As you are working through your recovery, you will want to get through your ordeal with the help of good quality incontinence products. DryForLife offers a discreet and completely confidential solution to all your incontinence needs. Your concerns are very much our concerns; we have been providing incontinence products for over forty years, and we are here to help.

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What is Incontinence Biofeedback?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Biofeedback is a method of understanding an action that takes place in the body through the use of lights or sounds. Biofeedback can be used in incontinence to help women who are having difficulty in learning to control their pelvic floor muscles. Because pelvic floor muscles do not come neatly labelled, some women have trouble locating these muscles in order to peform Kegel exercises.

Biofeedback is used as a tool to teach you how to isolate and exercise these muscles, which are so important in bladder control. Using sounds and computer graphs, a therapist can help you to exercise the all-important pelvic floor muscles, which can help improve incontinence.

Biofeedback is not painful. During biofeedback, sensors are placed on either side of the anus, as this is where the pelvic floor muscles are closest to the surface. Sensors are also placed on the abdomen because many women use their abdominal muscles instead of their pelvic floor muscles when performing Kegels. A graph and lights and/or sounds will be emitted from the computer attached to the sensors while you are performing Kegels, and you will be able to see clearly when you are using your muscles correctly. Most women require only a few sessions before they are able to perform Kegels effectively and efficiently.

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