Are you struggling with urinary incontinence? If so, this post will show you how to manage your symptoms effectively using quality incontinence products.
According to the World Health Organization, 33% of adults in the USA suffer from urinary incontinence.
While ageing can be a factor, other causes can aggravate your symptoms such as:
- Obesity
- Lack of exercise
- Smoking
- Alcohol
- Constipation
- Spicy and acidic foods
- Caffeine
- Not drinking adequate water
Thankfully, the good news is that you can control a lot of the above factors and make healthy lifestyle changes to reduce your symptoms. In cases where this is not possible, there are many helpful products such as adult diapers and protective underwear.
In this post, we'll review what incontinence is, the different types of incontinence, and how to manage your symptoms effectively.
Let's get started!
How to Manage Urinary Incontinence: 5 Simple Tips
Before going over how to manage urinary incontinence, let's first understand the two major types of the condition.
Different Types of Urinary Incontinence
Stress Urinary Incontinence
The primary cause for stress urinary incontinence is weakened pelvic muscles resulting in urine leaks. As a result of weak pelvic muscles, leaks happen when you engage in physical activities like lifting, bending, or walking. Even a simple cough or sneeze can result in a leak.
Overactive Bladder
Doctors sometimes refer to this condition as "urgency incontinence," and is typical in men. This is an urge or signal from the nervous system to your bladder to empty, although it is not full.
Some usual symptoms of this condition are:
- Constantly thinking about when to use the washroom next.
- Waking up many times to visit the bathroom
- Spending prolonged amounts of time inside a restroom - sometimes more than an hour.
Despite whatever condition you are suffering from, there are many simple ways to manage urinary incontinence. Let's go over some natural bladder support remedies and incontinence products with proven results.
Reducing the Symptoms of Urinary Incontinence
1. Avoid Certain Foods That Irritate the Bladder
Bringing down the volumes of caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, and citrus has an immediate positive effect. A proven incontinence tip is to maintain a diary to keep a note of all that goes into your stomach, including intake timings. Be sure to follow this up with when you felt the urge to pee.
2. Drink Plenty of Water
Drinking lots of water may seem like the last thing you should do. However, a lack of water produces concentrated urine, which is the most annoying bladder irritant. Thankfully, the intake of adequate amounts of water deals with this situation and your urine will become clear again.
3. Do Regular Pelvic Floor Exercises
Try doing exercises like Kegel while sitting at your office desk. Trainers suggest doing this at least three times a day to manage urinary incontinence.
4. Take Part in Weight Loss Programs
The additional pounds due to an obese or overweight condition can put pressure on the bladder muscles, which can result in an involuntary leak. A daily dose of walking, jogging, skipping, or exercising will help significantly to reduce stress incontinence.
5. Schedule Visits to the Restroom
Fix a time between each bathroom visit, say an hour or so. After sticking to the schedule religiously, increase the time between each visit gradually.
Incontinence Symptoms: How Should You Handle Them?
A common mistake made by women is to take care of incontinence by using menstrual napkins. A sanitary napkin is not designed to absorb urine and can cause a very uncomfortable and wet sensation.
On the other hand, incontinence underwear and pads offer an ideal solution to adult leakage issues and increase user confidence.
Selecting the Right Incontinence Products
Here are a few things to consider when choosing what type of incontinence products to purchase.
- Rate of absorbency: Most brands have light, medium, and heavy labels to help consumers choose one according to their needs. Quality options, such as the Abena Adult Briefs, have fast absorption rates and move the fluids outwards to keep the skin dry.
- Odour cancellation: Rather than the feeling of wetness, most people are also bothered by the thoughts of how they smell. Underwear that comes with Ph controllers takes care of this issue. Be aware that some perfumes used by certain brands can cause allergies or skin rashes.
- The right size: Size matters when ensuring comfortable coverage. Selecting the right size increases confidence levels and gives better protection.
- Washable vs disposable: Incontinence underwear and pads also come in as reusable and disposable varieties. Users have revealed that washable variants have certain disadvantages like lack of odor control, proper fit, and leakage.
Closing Thoughts
A foolproof solution for incontinence goes a long way in making your life more comfortable and increasing your confidence levels.
Finally, it is of paramount importance to discuss how to manage urinary incontinence and follow the recommended treatment plan with your doctor.
We hope you found this post helpful! Don't forget to check out all of our incontinence products here.
