If you are tired of running to the bathroom, there is help! We provide effective, natural overactive bladder physical therapy treatment right here in Grand Rapids. We offer you the opportunity to have a normal functioning bladder, without medications and without constantly worrying about where the bathroom is located!
Top Tips to help you manage your overactive bladder
Have you noticed that you need to go to the bathroom more often than you think you should? Do you get a sudden urge to urinate and you can’t hold it like you used to? These are two hallmark symptoms of a condition called overactive bladder or urinary urgency and frequency. Patients have told me things like their bladder is “small”, “weak”, “not strong”, “different since I had my kids”, “used to be able to hold it like a horse, now have no ability to hold it”, “annoying”. To deal with this people will commonly urinate to empty their bladder even when they don’t have any urge to urinate, such as before leaving their home, or when they see a restroom and they are out and about. Also, they limit their fluid intake so their bladder doesn’t get full as easily. These strategies actually can worsen your overactive bladder. If you are struggling with overactive bladder, contact us to learn more about our overactive bladder physical therapy treatment in Grand Rapids. We’ve helped countless people get their life back and we can help you, too!
Here are some tips to help you:
- When you don’t need to urinate, don’t go to the bathroom “just in case”. Urinating when you don’t have a full bladder, when your bladder is not reaching its full capacity, is teaching your body that you need to empty it before it is full. Over time, this will perpetuate your problem because your bladder will get used to emptying when it isn’t even full.
- Drink adequate amount of fluid (Don’t limit your fluid intake). Limiting your fluid intake creates concentrated urine and a smaller amount of urine. A smaller amount of urine is a problem because it never allows the bladder to actually fill up to a proper level and learn to hold this amount. Your bladder is actually a muscle and, like all muscles, it needs opportunities to move through its full range of motion by completely filling up and completely emptying. Low fluid intake may also irritate the bladder lining, causing you to have bladder spasms and urgency.
- If it is an inappropriate urge to urinate, remember, you are the boss! This simply means that if you let your bladder “win” every time it demands to be emptied, you are setting yourself up for your bladder to be your boss. If you know you shouldn’t have to urinate yet, then work to calm your bladder down. At Purple Mountain PT we can teach you numerous strategies to get your urge to subside. One easy thing you can do is take calming, slow, deep breaths. As you do this, try to regain control over your bladder.
- Are certain foods or drinks contributing to your overactive bladder? Pay attention to what you’ve put into your body and see if there is a pattern. Is coffee a problem? Lemonade? Grapefruits? Some people can link their bladder urgency to food or drinks they recently consumed. Once you pay attention, then you can make different choices.
- Address constipation! The bladder can react to the bowel, so if you are constipated it may set off your bladder. We’ve worked with people whose bladder urgency is a signal they get when they need to defecate! If you want to calm down the bladder, go back to your bowel and work to optimize it.
- Consider physical therapy, it really works! If you are tired of always needing to map out where the bathrooms are located or stopping for extra bathroom breaks on your road trips, we are here to help. Overactive bladder responds particularly well to the treatment methods we offer you. Our specialized methods of hands-on treatment address all of your Viscerosomatic connections to your bladder. That’s a fancy way of saying we will treat the many areas of your body (hips, back, legs, abdomen, pelvic floor) that might be causing your bladder to have these bladder spasms. Together with the tricks and exercises we teach you to implement at home, you should notice a big improvement in your bladder urgency and frequency. If you’d like to read more about pelvic floor dysfunction and the benefits of our Physical Therapy take a look at the guest blog post I wrote on for Revive Physical Therapy. Please contact us to learn more about how we can help you!
We are here for you, offering effective and compassionate overactive bladder physical therapy treatment. If you are tired of having this problem, call us today to talk to Dr. Maureen O’Keefe and get your questions answered about our overactive bladder treatment program here in Grand Rapids.
Peace,
Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT specializing in pelvic health, pelvic pain, bladder, bowel and sexual health conditions
