Living with Urinary Incontinence: A Common Issue Suffered in Silence

Let’s talk about incontinence, a problem that affects 1 in 4 Australians. And despite it being so common, it’s still one many would rather stay quiet about and suffer in silence. As a health condition, it affects both sexes at one point or other in life, and though it’s often considered to be more frequent with the elderly, many young adults are facing it more and more.

Besides affecting a person’s quality of life, as there’s always the fear someone might notice your issue in public due to unpleasant odours or stains, the fact is urinary incontinence can lead to other serious conditions, such as UTIs due to the humid conditions that bacteria thrive in. In other words, it’s something you should tend to as soon as you notice it. Ever since I got pregnant, I’ve been dealing with incontinence to some extent, leaking before making it to the toilet, but I’ve managed to get a hold of it as best I could.

Get Your Batch of Incontinence Supplies

One of the easiest and efficient ways to handle your day to day problem with leaking is to reach out for the incontinence supplies a trusted pharmacy has in store. You may be even shivering at the thought of using adult pads on a daily basis, but they truly are lifesavers. I’ve been wearing them since before giving birth and they’ve rescued me from some pretty unpleasant situations.

When looking through the variety of options, it’s important to consider the severity of your problem, related to how much absorbency you require, as well as the length and thickness you want the pads to be in. In case you’ve got heavy leakage, you might consider combining them with adequate briefs or underwear.

As opposed as I was to the idea of wearing an incontinence product such as the underwear initially, I’ve found it to be quite the ideal investment for travelling when you can’t do that much laundry. My advice when shopping for such specific underwear is to mind the size the same as you would with your regular underwear to avoid getting any reoccurring leaks.

While they’re particularly useful for avoiding nighttime leakage, if you worry you might end up staining the bed and your beloved sheets, you should seriously think of buying furniture pads and waterproof bedding. What I’ve found to be key for hygiene was my perfect mattress topper as it provides a perfect barrier between you and the mattress which can be more difficult to clean. If you care about protecting the topper as well, it’s easy to do so with a specialised cover.

Start Exercising and Get in Shape

No matter what the reason for the problem may be, could be vaginal birth, UTIs, enlarged prostate, weak bladder muscles, diabetes, Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s disease, the key to making your life easier while dealing with incontinence is to lose some weight by making diet changes and exercising. That is, along with addressing those specific issues too.

As it turns out that stubborn belly fat can be burdensome for your bladder too so losing some weight can be of help in treating this problem. Along with getting my own share of incontinence supplies, and making some more than needed changes with the nutrition, benefitting ready meal delivery services, I’ve also resorted to finally quitting my smoking addiction.

Even though I’ve substituted regular cigarettes with Ecigs it still required total quitting which took some time. While I’m on giving things up, I’ve also had to part from my favourite chocolates, coffee, citrus fruits, and spicy foods.

In case you can’t get a hold of those extra kilos, you should get the help of some fat burning supplements. And as for smoking, a habit that can seriously affect incontinence, my suggestion is to try hypnosis if everything else fails and you keep giving in to your urges. Lastly, out of all the different types of exercise you can treat yourself to, you can’t avoid trying Kegel exercises.

Since they’re focused on the pelvis, you get to strengthen the muscles in this region thus cut down on the leaks. I might add, you would benefit greatly by also acquiring incontinence products such as the MEDIballs created to work on a bio-feedback principle, i.e. weight resistance training. Besides being particularly helpful with preventing leakage, they’re a great investment for your sex life too, if you know what I mean!

Consider the Treatments for Urinary Incontinence

If you think you might be better off with some long-term solutions and you’re already tired of dealing with diapers and other incontinence supplies, the good news is there are several options you can discuss with your health care provider.

Some of these include behavioural modification therapy (which I got) to suggest the changes with your diet that need to be made to avoid irritating the bladder, or medications that are created to block the chemical messages of the nerves surrounding the bladder and those that strengthen the urethra wall.

Of the more invasive treatments, botox injections are a nice solution for overactive bladder, or eventually the sling procedure good for stress incontinence that’s in fact a surgical procedure involving a sling being inserted around the urethra for support.