Hi there. I wanted to talk to you today about bladder leaking and why I think this is such an important issue to treat. The first reason is that it is really common. Women leak. About a third of all women leak, and because it's so common, people accept it as normal, and a normal part of aging. But that's not true.
There are other things that happen as we age. It's more common to have high blood pressure, or develop diabetes, and those are things that we all treat. This is really a system failure, just like many other parts of the body can fail over time, and it is something that we should be treating. It also has such a dramatic impact on women's personal lives, their social lives, the way they feel about themselves.
Their body image, their personal relationships, it has an impact on your future health, right? Women who leak are more likely to have more medical conditions. They're more likely to have falls and fractures over time. They're more likely to be hospitalized. So there is a downstream reason why you should fix it.
And then the last reason that I think it's important to treat, even when it's a small problem, is that it is actually easier to treat when it's a small problem. And so if you could easily treat it with physical therapy and figuring out how to use your body mechanics in a more optimal way, And this would then help you for the rest of your life.
I think that's something that you should do right away. So for women, there are four types of leaking. The most common types of leaking are stress incontinence, urgency urinary incontinence, mixed incontinence, and overflow incontinence. So stress incontinence is leaking with coughing, sneezing exercise, where a force pushes a little bit of urine out.
Urgency incontinence is when you are going to the bathroom frequently, so you just feel like you're going to the bathroom too often. There's an urge to get there, and sometimes you can't quite get there on time. Mixed urinary incontinence is when you have both. So you can have stress incontinence and urgency incontinence, and sometimes it's hard to pick out the symptoms and figure out exactly what's going on, but you can definitely have mixed.
And then overflow happens when you just aren't emptying farewell, and that is the least common type of leaking in women. So in terms of treatment, you need to know why you leak in order to figure out how to treat it, because there are different treatments for each type of leaking. And so figuring out the diagnosis becomes really important.
And this can be really hard to figure out on your own. Lots of women don't have the right information and can't make this diagnosis on their own. The information online may be confusing. They may not be sure what practitioner they want to see. Or they just may not be comfortable talking about these things, they may not be comfortable with their anatomy or body parts, they may not know what words to use or how to discuss it.
Lots of women need help understanding their anatomy and the terminology just to feel more comfortable when they're seeing a provider. And I think this is a very normal part of the process to not feel comfortable with these things. A lot of my job in the office is making people feel comfortable about the things that they really don't want to talk about and making them feel comfortable with what they frequently considered to be too much information, right?
This is something that people say to me every day. You know, I'm, I'm just giving you way too much information about this and, you know, that's kind of my job to be the doctor, the TMI doctor. Once you figure out your diagnosis, then the next step is to figure out the universe of treatment options because there are a lot of treatment options and it's important to find the one that will work for your type of leaking, but also the one that suits you.
There are different types of treatments. Some are more time intensive than others. They may require going to physical therapy. You might be able to do some of the exercises at home. It might require a mesh. You might like this idea. You might not like this idea. So there are all different things that we have to talk about to make sure that you are picking the treatment that suits you the best.
And then, you know, there are just so many treatments out there that people have never heard of before. So for urgency urinary incontinence, one of our common third line treatments. So after you have tried physical therapy and behavioral training, maybe tried a couple of medications, then we get to third line treatment.
And one of the common treatments there is Botox, where we actually inject Botox into the bladder. To get rid of those symptoms of urgency and frequency, and that works very well. It's something that needs to be repeated over time, but that is not something that a lot of women have heard of, and they don't realize that there is a therapeutic indication for Botox in the bladder.
There are also injections that can be done in the urethra. So the urethra is the tube that goes from the bladder to the outside. We do bulking procedures, so I think about like filler for the lips, except for you're putting it in the urethra, and that allows the urethra to close better and hold the urine back in.
And that is a treatment for stress urinary incontinence. But again, I think people know that there are surgeries out there, but aren't aware of these, you know, treatments that are procedures, but are in the middle and not as aggressive or invasive as a surgery. So there are lots of different treatment options out there.
And it's important for you to understand all of these. So then, you know, how do you get this information? It can be hard to find the right provider and that is why I have put together my course Bladder 101 to help facilitate all of this for you. I spend my days talking to women about their pelvic floor issues and their leaking and I took my experience and my expertise did some additional research and I put it all together in this course.
Thanks. And I think this course is helpful for two different types of people. One, if you're someone who has incontinence and you really just don't even know where to start, I think this is a great introductory course. And I also think that it's helpful for women who know what type of leakage they have, but they want to make sure that they understand all of the treatment options and they're looking for some additional information on the treatment options.
So those are the two different types of women that I think this course is helpful for. As always, I will include links in the show notes. If you're interested in my course, you will find it on my website, the womensbladderdoctor. com. There's a tab for courses at the top. You click on that tab and you'll see Bladder 101 and you can go ahead and purchase it from there.
So incontinence is such a big problem for so many women, so there are so many women out there who are trying to exercise without leaks, who are trying to get through their kids baseball game without having to find a bathroom. Wanting to laugh after dinner with friends and avoid embarrassing Lee or trying to make it through the business meeting without worrying about your bladder.
So I think it impacts people in so many different ways, and it's such a very important thing to address, and it's also easier to address when it is a small problem. So if you address it early, it's easier to treat. If you wait till it's a big problem, then it's frequently a little bit harder to treat. So my goals for Bladder 101 are that at the end of the course, you understand your anatomy, right?
So you know your parts, you know kind of what we're talking about, and you understand how that anatomy functions, right? And I go through all of the terminology very carefully. You know, there's no reason to be shy here. I want you to be able to talk to your provider about your leaking using the right vocabulary and be confident in your communication.
I think this is something that really holds a lot of women back because they're just not sure how to describe their symptoms. Maybe they're not sure what part of their anatomy is really causing the problem. And so being comfortable with the terminology and understanding the anatomy will help. It goes a long way in making you feel more comfortable discussing these issues.
At the end of the program, I want you to understand why you're leaking and to know what caused it. I want you to be able to identify your bladder triggers. So bladder triggers are things that make your bladder worse that can cause leaking and other health factors. So think about things like hormones, medications, other medical conditions that might be influencing your bladder's bad behavior.
By the end of the program, I want you to understand what products, what providers and what coaches are out there that can help you strengthen your pelvic floor. By the end of the program, I want you to be familiar with all the treatments out there. I think it is easiest to pick the best treatment for you.
If you understand the whole universe of treatments that are out there. So we talk about everything and it's important for you to hear that even if there are treatments that really, you know, you don't like by the end of the program, I want you to be able to confidently pick a treatment that'll work for you and fit your lifestyle.
Right? Because if it doesn't suit you, you won't stick with it. So I see lots of women who signed up for, let's say pelvic floor physical therapy, but they really hate it. They know that they're not going to stick with it. And then in the end, that's not the best treatment for you because you're not really going to do it and stick with it.
And so it's important to be honest with yourself about those things. So my bladder 101 is set up. In three modules. Module one is all about bladder function and dysfunction. Module two is all about self-diagnosis and limitations. And then module three is all about the treatments. So I'm, I'm just gonna take a second here and I'm gonna go through each module and talk to you about what is included in each module.
So, the first module, Bladder Function and Dysfunction, so I really feel like this module sets you up for success by making sure you understand the anatomy and the related vocabulary, and I think that is so important. That'll put you and your provider on the same page. You'll be able to understand the language and the conversation a little bit better.
I also want you to understand how the bladder is supposed to work and what can go wrong. What different things can cause your bladder to act up. This may seem like a lot more information than you need, but I think it helps to create clarity about what else can impact bladder function. So, you know, just as a quick aside, there are lots of other medical conditions that can cause bladder symptoms.
And so it's important to think about all of those things. An example here is sleep apnea. So I see a lot of women with sleep apnea and sleep apnea can cause bladder problems. And best way to fix that is actually to fix the sleep apnea and then the bladder issues will resolve. So it's important to think about all of those things.
So after you complete this module, you'll be able to name the parts of the urinary tract and the female pelvis. You'll know where the pelvic floor muscles are in your body and how to find them. You'll understand what nerves are needed to keep the bladder working well, and what nerve problems can cause bladder problems.
And then I'll also go over the different types of bladder leaking, so stress incontinence, urgency urinary incontinence, mixed urinary incontinence, and then overflow incontinence. and what causes each type of dysfunction. So I think this is really the backbone of the program and it helps you to understand all of the other components.
Okay, so module two is about self diagnosis and limitations. So different types of bladder leaking are treated in different ways, and that means that you have to know why you're leaking to know what treatments will work for you. So every week I see patients in the clinic who come to me and they want to have a sling to fix their incontinence, but a sling only works for stress incontinence, and so it'll work for some women, but not all women.
And it's my job to make sure that they're treated. That the women who will be benefited by a sling are offered a sling and that women who won't be benefited are not offered a sling. So you just can't do a sling on anyone who's leaking because it does not impact all types of leaking. Fixing your bladder can take a lot of work and you have to be pretty honest with yourself about what you have time for and what you're willing to do.
And this is something that I help you dive into so that you're not going down a treatment road that really does not suit you. So at the end of this module, you should be able to identify what type of leaking you have. You should understand your triggers, right? So your habits, what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, all of these things can impact your bladder.
And you need to know what you're doing that actually makes things worse, or maybe even what you're doing that makes things better so that you can do more of that. You need to understand what other medical conditions might impact your bladder. You need to think about the available time that you have.
And then, at the end of this module, I help you determine your treatment blueprint. And this is to help you pick the best solution for you. You really have to identify what you're looking for. And I call that your treatment blueprint. So this includes identifying factors like Whether you need a coach or whether you want to do it all on your own, the amount of time you have, and then using that treatment blueprint to pick the best treatment for you.
So then the last module is about treatments. So once you know what kind of leaking you have and what you need to do to make the treatment a success for you, you're ready to start reviewing all of the potential solutions. So in this module, I review the treatments. They're broken down by what type of leaking that you have, and then I've also created a key so you can easily identify if the treatment meets your success criteria, right?
So if that treatment is one that would be a reasonable treatment for you. At the end of this module, you should understand overall lifestyle improvements that help leaking. You should be aware of the whole treatment universe for a specific type of leaking, right? So you know all of the different treatments so that you can pick the one that is best suited for you.
And then you can see how each treatment meets your treatment blueprint. So once you've identified what's important to you, when you're looking for a solution, I've created a key to help you evaluate all the treatments with this blueprint and a decision guide to help you pick a method to strengthen your pelvic floor.
You, once you've identified what's important to you when looking for a solution, we're going to use that information to help you evaluate all of the treatments with your blueprint. And then there's a decision guide to help you pick a method to strengthen your pelvic Public floor strengthening is always part of the solution or almost always part of the solution, even if it isn't the only part of the solution.
Bladder 101 has these three implementation modules designed to teach you about the bladder, your leaking, how to pick the right treatment for you, all of the information that you need to get started on your journey to dryness. There's a complete resource of treatments. There is a comprehensive decision guide, and then you would have lifelong access to the modules as long as the course is available.
Bladder 101 is a course that I'm really proud of. It has helped so many women out there. I use parts of this course in my own clinic every day. And I think it is just a great way to help you start thinking about things and help you get started. And even if you're not ready to embark on a solution yet, I think it is always so helpful for women to know what is all out there and that there are lots of treatments and there are lots of things that you can do, and there are more treatments being developed all of the time, so it's something that you can be very optimistic about.
You can know that it is all very treatable. This is definitely something that we can make better. I hope this information is helpful for you. You know, that there's no time like the present to go ahead and get started. You know, if you're bothered by your bladder leaking, there's no reason to wait. Because it is easier to treat when it is a small problem, and the benefits of treating the leakage are kind of infinite.
Women that have bladder leaking have lower self esteem, they feel more self conscious, they have body image issues. And by treating the leaking, kind of all of those things go away, and people become more active and more social, and all of those things help us really age gracefully. So, I encourage you to do something and get started.
