Have you ever thought about your bladder habits and whether they are ‘normal’ or not? Or maybe you have no idea what is normal vs what is not normal. Everyone’s bladder is different, some people wee 10 times a day, other people wee 5 times a day. Some people can hold theirs in all day, and other people leak.
So, what is normal?
Our bladder is like a balloon, it is filling up with urine as you are reading this, and then soon you will get an urge to go to the toilet, you sit down on the toilet, and the bladder empties. The balloon is now small again, ready to be filled up once more. Our bladder is actually surrounded by a muscle, its name is the detrusor. As urine enters the bladder the bladder wall expands – so the detrusor is expanding, once the detrusor becomes stretched enough this is when your brain tells you its time to go to wee.
This is a bit of a complicated process. Everyone gets the urge to go to the toilet with different amounts of urine in their bladder, the normal is approximately 300-400ml. Upon sitting on the toilet, your pelvic floor muscles relax to allow the urine to come out. If the pelvic floor didn’t relax, you wouldn’t be able to get anything to come out.
So now you understand how the bladder works, what does this look like and what would normal habits be?
- You get the urge to go to the toilet
- You are able to control your urge – you do not need to RUN every time to the toilet
- You urinate 5-10 times per day
- When you sit on the toilet the flow begins straight away
- The flow isn’t painful
- You can empty all your urine out
- When you stand up no more comes out
- You don’t leak urine with coughing, sneezing, running, exercise, laughing, lifting.
What does a ‘not normal’ bladder look like?
- You leak urine
- You need to go very frequently and its disrupting your social and work life
- You feel a sudden, intense and frequent desire/urge to wee
- Your urge is uncontrollable, and you leak
- You get a lot of UTI’s (urinary tract infections)
- You can’t get all your urine out or when you stand up more is still coming out
What would this be happening?
Several different reasons! We need to identify what is causing yours. Common reasons include:
- Prolapse
- Overactive bladder
- Weak pelvic floor muscles
- A hypertonic or increased tightness of the pelvic floor muscles
- Bladder irritation
- Posture
- Fluid
- Neurological conditions
- Constipation and other bowel issues
The most important thing is that bladder leakage and other bladder conditions are NOT apart of getting older. There are a variety of different treatment options, and we will get you back to jumping on the trampoline, running, lifting weights, walking and anything else you want to do.