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Posts Tagged ‘urinary leakage’

The Right Incontinence Pant Can Make a Huge Difference

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Dealing with adult incontinence can be quite a challenge, and while millions of adults suffer from some sort of urinary incontinence, much of that suffering is done in relative silence. There is a natural tendency to feel a little bit ashamed over any sort of incontinence, and even when people know that the problem is medical, it can still leave them with low self-esteem and embarrassment. Many people who suffer from some sort of adult urinary incontinence begin to withdraw from social activities that they once loved, because they are afraid of humiliating, accidental urinary leakage in public. Unfortunately, by withdrawing from friends and social gatherings, they leave behind the very support system that can help them deal with the hand that they have been dealt.

If you are suffering from any type of incontinence one of the easiest ways to deal with this embarrassing problem is to have quality products that you can count on. Finding a good incontinence pad or pant is invaluable in the management of your urinary leakage problem. When you are looking for a good incontinence pant, make sure that you consider your lifestyle along with the level of protection that you need. Incontinence pants exist for every combination of activity and protection level that you could ever need. You may find that you need different levels of protection depending on the activity that you are engaging in, so you will be able to find a variety of options to help you manage your incontinence problem, whether you have complete loss of bladder control or simply have occasional, light leakage.

Because of the reluctance of most people to discuss their incontinence problems, many of them start managing their leakage problems with sanitary pads. Unfortunately, this type of pad is not designed to absorb a large amount of liquid, so you may just end up with soggy pants and chaffed skin. Undergarments and pads that are designed especially for urinary leakage can hold a volume of liquid, and they also help to keep your skin dry and healthy.

When you are evaluating different incontinence pants there are some characteristics that you should look for, so that you will have the best chance of managing your incontinence problem successfully. First of all your incontinence pant should be comfortable to wear and have a low profile, so that it is not visible under clothing. Then it is very important for the pad or pant to be absorbent enough for your level of incontinence, and it should fit your budget. Finally, when you are wearing your protective undergarment, you should feel confident and comfortable.

There are many different styles from which to choose, and you may even prefer different types of incontinence products for different types of activities. Incontinence pants come in washable and disposable styles, and you can find pants with pads build in or pants with a pocket in which to insert a pad. So you can tailor your incontinence pant to your needs for any specific place and time.

While no one would choose to be incontinent, if you are in the midst of managing this problem, then you will want to get familiar with all of the products that are available to make your life just a little easier, and DryForLife has been helping people successfully live with their incontinence for over forty years. You will find a wide selection of styles and levels of absorbency from which to choose, and they can all be purchased from the comfort of your home and delivered right to your front door.

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Enuresis Nocturna Can be a Nightmare

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Bedwetting, or enuresis nocturna, can happen any time that a person falls asleep. While it primarily happens when you are sleeping at night, it could happen if you fall asleep on an airplane or in front of the television. This problem frequently goes unreported simply because it is embarrassing, and it frequently keeps people who suffer from living their life to the fullest. Young adults may forgo the college experience for fear of being found out, and young working adults may pass on a business trip for the same reason. Some young adults may even postpone serious dating lest their partner should find out their shameful secret.

Adult bedwetting can be caused by an overactive bladder, which can cause urinary leakage even during waking hours. An infection like a urinary tract infection, diabetes or kidney disorders can also be the culprits behind nocturnal enuresis. Stress, anxiety, or loss of muscle elasticity can be underlying causes for this condition as well.

If you are suffering from enuresis nocturna, there are some things that you can do to mitigate its symptoms. Start by not drinking anything after dinner. This will help you keep from going to bed with a full bladder. Then limit foods that act like diuretics such as caffeine. You can also set an alarm to wake you in the middle of the night so that you can get up to go to the bathroom, and this should keep your bladder from overfilling. You can also practice holding your urine during the daytime to help increase the size of your bladder.

If you are having problems with enuresis nocturna, talk to your doctor or medical health professional so that they can assess any underlying causes for the problem, which may even help to cure it. While your doctor is helping you solve your problem remember that incontinence pads come in a great variety of shapes, sizes, and absorbencies to deal with mild to severe incontinence. They protect from skin irritation, and are invaluable in protecting clothing and furniture. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads with all of these qualities, allowing you the freedom live your life confidently.

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Getting Continence Help is Paramount in Adolescence

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Getting Continence Help is Paramount in Adolescence

Generally when you think of continence problems, you think of the very young or the very old. However, continence problems occur at any age, and unfortunately, because of the social stigma connected to urinary incontinence, this problem is even more difficult to deal with in adolescence.

A time of massive changes both emotional and physical, the teen years are challenging under the best of circumstances. However, when a young adult is dealing with incontinence issues, they may be even more reluctant than normal to seek continence help.

At this age the types of continence problems that can arise are urinary incontinence, which is urinary leakage. Another fairly common issue is nocturnal enuresis, which is urinating involuntarily while sleeping. Faecal incontinence, which is the involuntary passage of stool, can also be an issue during adolescence.

Genetic abnormalities, accidents or neurological disorders can cause these problems, which require continence help. While the percentage of teens presenting incontinence symptoms is fairly low, many of these young adults carry their continence issues into adulthood, and this is why it is important for these teens to be armed with the proper continence help and information.

It is very important for anyone who works with adolescents to be informed about continence issues, so that they can address the problem with sensitivity when it is presented. Especially at this impressionable age, teens need to understand that there is continence help, and that the condition is not somehow their fault.

When an adolescent is too embarrassed to seek continence help, there is a very real danger of them developing low self-esteem and suffering needless emotional distress. Continence problems can cause a young teen to become socially isolated and excluded as they miss field trips and sleepovers with classmates.

Getting assistance for an adolescent may help them solve or at least confidently manage their continence issues, and as they go forward into their adult years, they will be able to engage in all that life has to offer. The importance of proper assessment and treatment of urinary or faecal incontinence, before it affects a teen’s self worth, cannot be overstated.

If you have an adolescent who is suffering from incontinence, there are treatments and medications that may substantially help their condition, and as you are working to solve their problem, incontinence pads can free them from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads, which may be ordered online and discretely delivered.

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Bladder Training: Body Building on the Inside

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

If you suffer from any type of incontinence, bladder training can be a very helpful tool to manage your symptoms. As a matter of fact, it can cut your accidental leakage incidents by over half. Bladder training combines controlling urinary urges and building up your bladder volume. It is a great way for you to get back in tune with your body.

To begin training your bladder, you must first understand it, and the best way to do this is to monitor its behavior. Start by keeping a log of what you drink, when you have to urinate, if you have any leakage, and what you were doing when the urinary leakage occurs. Record your regular behavior for about a week.

At this point you will have a pretty good picture of how your body is functioning now. So if you go to the bathroom about every hour, but you have leakage every forty-five minutes, then begin your bladder retraining by going to the bathroom every half-hour. If you go to the bathroom every two and a half hours with leakage occurring at two hours, then begin your bladder training by going to the bathroom every other hour.

Once you have determined your starting point, then you will want to always go to the bathroom right when you wake up and right before going to sleep. Make sure you stick to your schedule. If your schedule is to urinate every two hours, then make sure that you go to the bathroom every two hours whether you think that you need to or not. By sticking to your schedule, you will keep your bladder from getting too full and leaking. If you have to urinate before you are scheduled to, try to wait. Sometimes doing pelvic floor contractions can help to quiet the urge to go.

When you are sleeping, you do not need to follow your bathroom schedule, but continue keeping your bladder log or bladder diary. As you gain control over your bladder, you will begin to experience fewer problems with leakage, so you will know that your training is successful.

As you notice that you can easily hold your bladder in between scheduled bathroom breaks, it is time to begin increasing the span between bathroom visits. You will want to stretch the time by a half-hour until you are going to the bathroom about once every three to four hours. As you are doing this, try to keep your fluid intake consistent, and in no time at all you will find that you are well on your way to managing your incontinence by following your bladder training techniques.

And as you are working on retraining your bladder, incontinence pants can protect clothing and furniture, and they offer protection from skin irritation. DryForLife supplies incontinence products, which are available online.

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Managing Continence as You Age

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

In an aging population managing continence is becoming a more frequent topic for discussion. With millions of people affected by urinary incontinence, which is involuntary urinary leakage, managing continence is creeping out into the light of day.

While the problem of urinary incontinence is generally associated with old age, it can affect people at any age. For many reasons, not the least of which is embarrassment, many of the people who do suffer from some sort of urinary incontinence suffer in silence, which means that they are not seeking out any help for their condition either.

Urinary incontinence is not a disease; rather it is a symptom of some physical, underlying problem. Becoming incontinent is not a natural part of getting old, though there are changes related to aging that can contribute to urinary incontinence. For example, as a person ages they may develop certain physical limitations that make it difficult for them to reach the bathroom.

Another behavior that may accompany aging is not drinking enough fluids, which can cause a couple of continence problems. First, it concentrates the urine, which can irritate the bladder causing more frequent urination. Secondly, it can cause constipation, which can also be a contributing factor in urinary incontinence.

Conditions such as bladder infection, stroke or afflictions that affect the nervous system can also lead to urinary incontinence. Many medications have urinary incontinence as a side effect, where they either act as a diuretic flooding the bladder with liquid, or they reduce awareness or the urge to urinate like muscle relaxants.

As an older adult there are some things that you can do to manage continence on your own, and most of the ideas are pretty simple. If you have a physical limitation that makes it difficult to get yourself to the bathroom, get into the habit of going to the bathroom at regular intervals throughout the day. Every two or three hours visit the rest room whether you feel the urge to go or not. By scheduling your trips to the bathroom before they are urgent, you are giving yourself ample time to get there before you are hit by a sudden urge to go.

The next step in managing continence on your own is to keep your system regular and avoid becoming constipated. Make sure that you drink about five glasses of water per day along with the fluids that you would normally drink. You may also want to cut back on your consumption of drinks with caffeine or alcohol and drink water instead.

If you are still having problems talk to your medical care professional so that they can identify any medical problems that may be causing your incontinence symptoms. And as you are working through the solution to your problem, incontinence pads can free you from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. They protect clothing and furniture, and they offer protection from skin irritation. While you cannot ignore aging, managing continence as you age allows you to enjoy a continued active lifestyle.

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Urge Urinary Incontinence Treated Successfully with Medical Therapy and Bladder Retraining

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

If you are experiencing a strong and sudden need to urinate, followed by your bladder contracting and urine leakage, then you are probably dealing with urge urinary incontinence. Your symptoms will include a distended or uncomfortable abdomen, the need to urinate frequently whether day or night, involuntary urine loss, and the sudden urgent need to urinate.

With these symptoms you should seek out medical help, because there are treatments that can help you. Once you have been properly diagnosed by a medical professional, treatments including bladder retraining and medical therapy are options for management or a cure.

While you can manage the bladder retraining, your doctor will have to prescribe any medical therapy that may be necessary. Bladder retraining is exactly what it sounds like, simply retraining your bladder to properly void. To start you will set a timer to urinate before your body gets the urge to void. With your timer, you will urinate every hour whether or not you feel that you need to. If you have to go sooner than an hour, try to hold it. After one week on the hour schedule, you will move your intervals to ninety minutes. The following week you will increase your intervals to two hours, followed by two and a half hours the next week, and finally followed by three hours the week after that.

Once you reach three hours, you will stay there and plan to urinate about every three hours, and while this process will take over a month to complete, it will be well worth your time.

If your doctor determines that you will need medical therapy for your urge incontinence, you will very likely be prescribed Ditropan, imipramine or Detrol. Each of these medicines works in conjunction with bladder retraining, and together the medical therapy coupled with the bladder retraining is very effective for dealing with urge urinary incontinence.

And as you are working through the solution to your problem, incontinence pads can free you from the worry of having urinary leakage in public. 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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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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Reflex Urinary Incontinence

Monday, November 30th, 2009

When there is damage to the nerves that allow a person to control when they urinate the bladder fills, but the person has no sensation that they need to empty their bladder. When the bladder becomes overfull, it will eventually empty on its own, which is called reflex urinary incontinence. This type of incontinence is most commonly found in people who have a spinal cord injury, suffered a stroke, have Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis or have a brain tumor.

People suffering from reflex incontinence are unable to control the release of urine from the bladder, and it can occur when the bladder contracts involuntarily causing urine to leak. This type of incontinence can be diagnosed by a gynecologist, urologist, or family doctor.

There are several different types of tests that your doctor may request to determine the cause of your incontinence problem including a physical exam, urinalysis, x-rays or cystoscopy. Your doctor may ask you to keep a journal of your urination schedule and to note when urinary leakage occurs.

Your doctor may choose to do an IVP, which is a specialized procedure that injects contrast dye before x-raying internal organs. The test is looking for blockages or obstructive growths that may cause the reflex incontinence.

A cystoscopy involves your urologist inserting a thin tube into your urethra to check for abnormalities that may be causing the reflex incontinence. They may also choose to take a biopsy of any suspect tissue that they encounter.

If the reason for your reflex urinary incontinence is unknown, you will want to have a medical professional diagnose you as soon as possible. Aside from being inconvenient and annoying, it may be warning you of some more sinister problem lurking in the shadows. By having your doctor properly diagnose your problem, you will be able to start a course of treatment to manage and maybe even cure your problem.

As your doctor is working on properly diagnosing the cause of your reflex urinary incontinence, the right incontinence products can free you from the worry of having accidental leakage in public. Incontinence pads come in many different sizes and absorbencies to deal with any problem from mild to severe. DryForLife supplies a variety of incontinence products, which may be ordered online and discreetly delivered to you.
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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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