Bladder Urgency: Dr. Dave Explains
For the next few weeks, we are taking a break from our lab tests series to shed light on various health conditions and offer basic advice on how you could go about managing them. Today, Dr. Dave Strobel talks for a few minutes on bladder urgency and how some of the "common sense" things people do to deal with it may actually be causing more harm than good.
Bladder urgency is common among women starting generally in their fifties to sixties, though men can also suffer from it later in life. Beyond the embarrassment of dealing with the issue and the mental strain of constantly locating the nearest restroom, bladder urgency can have serious negative consequences on your health, particularly as you age.
Approximately 25% of women who are admitted to the hospital because of a fractured hip fell on the way to the bathroom, often as they were rushing because of bladder urgency. Given that injuries like a hip fracture are associated with a substantially increased risk of death within a few months, learning to manage bladder urgency could potentially be a life saving skill. There are three main things anyone can do to try to take back control over when you need to go.
The first, perhaps counterintuitively, is to stay hydrated. Contrary to popular wisdom, your bladder will push you more aggressively to go to the bathroom when you are dehydrated. This is because the uric acid and other wastes in the urine are less diluted and more likely to cause irritation in the bladder cells. Drinking more water will dilute this and result in a calmer bladder.
The second option is to cut back on foods that irritate your bladder. Many foods are known to cause bladder irritation in individuals. Cutting back on them, or even cutting them out, could help reduce the need to go. Coffee, alcohol, tea, carbonated drinks, and chocolate are a few common foods that can increase bladder irritation.
The third option is to exercise your pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is the muscle you clench when you are trying to hold your bladder or when you are holding back gas in public. By practicing exercises called kegels, you can essentially train your bladder to hold it in better. While drinking more water and cutting out irritants can help reduce how often you need to go, training your pelvic floor can help give you back control over when you go.
Premium members have access to the full course on Bladder Urgency in our learning modules available on our website.
Note: These videos are presented for educational purposes only. Your use of this site does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Specific medical advice is only offered through membership in HELPcare Clinic.
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Great information! I’ve personally also found that high levels of citric acid bother me, so not just sodas, but sports drinks (looking at you, Orange Gatorade Zero!) are very irritating as well.