Managing Overactive Bladder and Incontinence: Easy Self-Care

By: Karis Buford, MD

Here’s one sure sign your bladder needs a checkup: if you find yourself washing more underwear than socks, it’s time to think about your bladder’s health.

Overactive bladder (OAB) and urinary incontinence are common. Still, this does not make the hard-to-control need to go and involuntary leakage easier to manage for the estimated 25 to 50 million U.S. adults who live with the conditions. Consider this: 39% of women with OAB have said it interferes with their daily activities, including work.

Incontinence and OAB should not be accepted as a normal part of aging to quietly deal with. You have options for treatment – through self-care or a doctor’s care. But be aware: OAB can warn of underlying bladder disorders that could cause serious complications.

Listen to a replay of the webinar I hosted in April, “Silence the Sudden Urge: Treatments for Overactive Bladder and Urinary Incontinence.”

In recognition of Bladder Health Awareness Month, this blog post explains the disorders that cause OAB and incontinence, how to detect bladder-related urinary issues, and self-care tips.

Say Hello to Your Bladder, the Pear-Sized Wonder

Your bladder is a hollow, balloon-shaped organ about two inches across, located in the lower pelvis between your hip bones. It is connected to the kidneys (which filter your blood for waste and create urine), by two tubes called ureters.

Throughout the day and night, your bladder slowly expands as urine enters from the ureters, stretching up to six inches. When the bladder nears full capacity, about 1.5 to 2 cups of urine, receptors in your brain alert your bladder that it’s time to contract its muscular walls. At the same time, the brain sends you signals to find a bathroom.

Under ordinary circumstances, your bladder lets you control when to squeeze the urine out – it can typically store urine for three to five hours before holding it in becomes difficult.

However, if your bladder has weakened or receives wayward communications, it could start contracting before it is full and before you receive any “time to go” signals.

The Differences Between OAB and Incontinence, and Risks

OAB and urinary incontinence share many of the same symptoms and often occur together, but the conditions are subtly different:

OAB is caused by involuntary bladder contractions that prompt the frequent, unexpected, and intense need to urinate. OAB can occur with or without urinary leakage. Symptoms include having to urinate more than eight times a day (or less than every two hours), waking up more than twice a night to go, and sometimes leakage, meaning many people with OAB also experience incontinence. Download our OAB Guidebook for free.

Incontinence has several causes depending on the form. Urge incontinence is triggered by involuntary bladder contractions (OAB). Stress incontinence results from sudden force on the bladder muscles, such as coughing, sneezing, or jumping. Overflow incontinence occurs when the bladder doesn’t fully empty, leading to continuous dribbling and a constant need to go. Read more about incontinence causes in men and women.

Common risk factors for bladder-related urinary incontinence include pregnancy, childbirth, and menopausal hormone changes (for women), and enlarged prostate (in men). Age also is a key factor because the muscles in your bladder lose strength over time. If you are a man who wants to learn more about enlarged prostate, download our BPH guidebook for free.

6 Self-Care Tips for Overactive Bladder

Your urologist can prescribe medical treatments for OAB, but we suggest first trying a few home-based remedies to see how well you can control your bladder on your own. Here are 6 DIY OAB and incontinence care methods:

1. Pen a bathroom journal. Keep track of what you drink and your bathroom trips. Include how much you drink and when, followed by details of each bathroom episode such as what you were doing at the time, how long you could wait, and whether you leaked. Keep track for three to seven days to reveal a pattern. You can download our voiding log to help you keep track. This journal will be helpful should you see a urologist.
2. Follow a fluid intake schedule. Limit the amount of fluids you drink every day to under 40 to 60 ounces, timed evenly but cutting back after 6 p.m. This practice can help retrain your bladder and reduce the number of times you have to go at night.
3. Follow a bathroom-break schedule. Plan your bathroom trips for every two to three hours, synching them with your fluid intake schedule. This timing could prevent your bladder from sensing it is full too soon and forcing you to rush to the bathroom.
4. Stop irritating your bladder. Several foods and liquids are linked to bladder irritation and urge incontinence. These include carbonated beverages, coffee and alcohol (also diuretics), spicy foods, citrus, and the artificial sweetener aspartame. Cigarettes also irritate the bladder lining and can cause sharp coughing that triggers stress incontinence.
5. Maintain healthy abdominal weight. Excess stomach fat not only pressures the bladder, it can interfere with the organ’s nerves and blood supply. Further, too much abdominal weight can weaken pelvic floor muscles. Overweight women who lose 10% of their body weight experience a 50% improvement in incontinence, according to research by Harvard Health.
6. Strengthen your pelvic floor. Pelvic-strengthening exercises, in which you briefly squeeze the muscles that hold in gas or urination, can help reduce episodes of urinary incontinence by as much as 90%, the Mayo Clinic reports. And note: Kegel exercises also work for men. Perform up to three sessions a day, 10 to 15 squeezes per set.

If these home-based methods for managing OAB and incontinence do not work for you, your urologist can present medical options for treatment. These may include oral medications,  Botox injections  to relax the bladder muscles, nerve stimulation to manage bladder activity, or the Emsella Chair – a seat that delivers pelvic-strengthening electromagnetic currents.

Don’t Just “Live” with OAB and Incontinence – Control It

The first step to managing bladder’s health is recognizing when something is wrong – such as too many pairs of underwear in your laundry basket. Do not ignore the symptoms of urinating more frequently and urgently, resulting in occasional leakage. In addition to the above causes, OAB and incontinence can be a signal of diabetes, a urinary tract infection, a bladder obstruction, or nerve damage.

Be aware of your bladder’s health, raise awareness, and seek treatment.

Have additional questions about overactive bladder? Visit our OAB website to learn other causes and what to expect. You can request an appointment with a Michigan Institute of Urology provider here.