Menopausal Women

Menopause and bladder weakness

Estrogen stimulates blood flow to the pelvic region which contributes to keeping your pelvic floor muscles in good shape, as the blood flow reduces duirng menopause, the muscles become weaker and there is less blood flow to the lining of the bladder and urethra. The pelvic floor muscles may not have sufficient strength to close the bladder effectively causing unwanted urine leakage.
This is all part of the natural aging process and can be remedied along the way by simple regular pelvic floor exercises or regular use of Smart Balls.

There are different causes of incontinence

• Stress Incontinence: this is a very common type of bladder weakness often associated with sneezing, coughing, laughing, and jumping, where pressure on the abdomen puses on the bladder and can lead to urine leakage.
• Urge Incontinence: Urge incontinence is the most common type of incontinence. You may suddenly feel you have a desperate need to go to the toilet. Urge incontinence is often experienced by menopausal women.
• Mixed Incontinence: This type of incontinence is caused by a mixture of both stress incontinence and urge incontinence.
• Overflow Incontinence: During overflow incontinence your bladder cannot empty completely. As a result, your bladder will fill up very quickly making you feel like you need to go to the bathroom very frequently. Leakage is common.

Treatments for incontinence

What you eat and drink can improve your bladder strength.

• Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day to flush the bladder. Whilst to start with you may have to go to the toilet more frequently, this will drop off as your system reaches an equilibrium.
• Reduce caffiene intake from coffee, tea and ‘smart drinks’.
• Smoking can also exacerbate bladder weakness.

Pelvic Floor Exercises
Smart Balls are easy and effective for preventing and correcting bladder weakness are for menopausal women and women of all ages and life stages.  Smart Balls are not recommended for use during pregnancy and are ideal before and after giving birth, pre/during and post menopause and for older women. Find out more on how to use Smart Balls.

Bladder retraining – how to train your bladder to urinate less frequently

• Drink 6-8 glasses of water each day, and delay going to the toilet each time, first by 5 minutes building up to each time by a few more minutes
• Work towards delaying urination by 15 minutes and your baldder will be retrained to hold on for longer
• Do not exceed the 15 minute delay as holding on for too long can in itself cause incontinence.