Healthy Bladder Habits - Episode 7
In this episode I discuss several habits you can do to have a happy, healthy, bladder.
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Speaker A: You. Welcome to the Moron Pelvic Health Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Carrie Roberts. On this show, we will be discussing a variety of things regarding your pelvic health. These conversations will be a mix of education, personal experiences, and a blend of tips you can apply to have a healthier pelvis. The goal of this show is to normalize conversations around pelvic health and help women stop suffering in silence. Have you heard so much about what you should do and shouldn't do with your bladder and gotten a little bit confused? Eat this, don't eat that, do this, don't do that. Well, today I'm going to go through some simple tips and tricks that you can implement into your lifestyle to gain back control of your bladder that doesn't rock the boat. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I've kind of gone down this bladder health road, which I wasn't anticipating. Of course. I started with interstitial cystitis. My journey. It's no secret part of the reason why I am a pelvic physical pelvic floor physical therapist is because I should have been a patient, because I have and have overcome and sometimes still deal with my pelvic floor dysfunction and all presented with bladder stuff. So we talked about my story. Then we talked about the different types of stress or sorry, the different types of incontinence. Then I had an episode dedicated to stress incontinence, an episode dedicated to urge incontinence. And here we are. Let's stop talking about dysfunction and let's just talk about what are some things we can do to have a happy, healthy bladder. So that's what we're going to do today. I'm going to break this into two parts. One part is going to be some changes or some recommendations, and then the other part is just going to be some generalized information for nutrition and diet. As a disclaimer, I am a pelvic floor physical therapist, but I am not your physical therapist. So all of this is just general information. And if you want a specific plan, then I encourage you to reach out to me directly or a pelvic health physical therapist in your area so that you can get a personalized plan for you. Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's jump into it. The first thing is going to be drink water. Our body likes water. Our bladder loves water. When we drink plenty of water, the urine that our body produces is actually a little bit more diluted, and so therefore the bladder won't get as irritated when we pee or urinate. When we look at our urine, it should be a pale yellow. It shouldn't look like a highlighter. So if it's a darker yellow, really pigmented, that means it's probably not that concentrated. Our body can definitely use some more water. Something else while we're talking about the water is I live in Georgia. I live in the south. It's the summertime. While I'm recording this. And so people tend to get hot and people tend to sweat. So when you're sweating, your body is losing moisture through your sweat glands, which means your body may not be producing enough urine. Or you might notice that that urine is a little bit darker or a little bit more concentrated. So especially in the summer months, if it's hot where you are, it might be worth your while to drink a little more fluid than what you usually do to make sure you stay hydrated, make sure that that bladder stays healthy. Now, as a general rule, there are some institutions out there that recommend at least 64oz. But when you want to get really specific, there are other institutions out there that say take half your body weight in ounces and that's what you should drink. So to make this simple, if you weigh 200 pounds, half of that is 100. That means you should be drinking 100oz a day, which is a little over. I think that's like eleven or twelve, let me see, twelve and a half cups of water a day. That's kind of a lot. Not going to lie. If you're not drinking enough water, I would just set the bar with 64 and take it from there. But drink plenty of water. The other thing that you want to do to make sure you have a healthy bladder is the opposite. You want to avoid going into dehydration. Don't limit your fluid intake. A lot of times what happens when people feel like they're going to the bathroom too much, they will reduce how much they drink because they don't want to go to the bathroom. But when you reduce your fluid intake, you increase the concentration of your fluid, which could reinforce exactly what you're trying to prevent, which can increase your urge, your frequency and your incontinence. So you want to make sure you're not limiting your fluid intake. The next thing, as women, we want to make sure that our bodies can breathe. Air should be able to flow in and out so that things don't get irritated. And that is true with our pubic area, our pelvic area. So it's best to wear panties that have a cotton gusset in it or cotton panties all the way around because that's going to allow your body to breathe. Moisture doesn't build up. We already know that where it's dark, warm and moist is where bacteria can grow. Between our legs is dark, between our legs is generally warm. So we don't want moisture being there and then setting up for a urinary tract infection or anything like that. So those are my recommendations for what to do. Some behavioral changes to think about when you're trying to have a happy, healthy bladder. Now, in the realm of food, this is a pretty expansive generalized list. And so you probably can't eliminate all of these things. But if you notice that your frequency increases or your urge increases, and maybe there is something on this list that you eat and when you consume it you feel it and when you don't consume it you feel better. So again this is just general information. Of course you want to talk to your health provider or do some digging on your own to see what's really going on. But this is a generalized list of foods that can potentially irritate your bladder and make it not so happy or healthy. Alcohol. Alcohol can be a trigger for your bladder and can make it irritated. There's not really a whole lot I can say about it, just is what it is. The next thing on the list is going to be carbonation. So carbonated beverages are what makes carbonated beverages bubbly. That ingredient can actually irritate our bladder. Fun fact, it doesn't have to be soda, anything that's carbonated. So a lot of times when people come to see me and I'm like, I need you to drink flat water. So that means sparkling water is not something that I recommend for people that I tell drink flat water because there is a difference. Now granted sparkling water doesn't have any calories. A lot of times there's no sweeteners. So you don't get all of that junk that comes with sodas. But that carbonation in and of itself could be an irritant to your bladder. So that's why it's on this list. Even if it's carbonated water, it's still something that you may want to think about avoiding if you're having some bladder issues. The next thing is caffeine. Caffeine is definitely a stimulate, it can stimulate and irritate our bladder. And caffeine in all forms. There's caffeine in some medications, there's caffeine in some teas, there's caffeine in some coffees. So you want to just look at what you're consuming and see if maybe caffeine might be a trigger for your bladder. Something else on this list is milk or milk products. So milk is pretty straightforward. Milk products, you want to think cheese, you want to think ice cream, you want to think yogurt. If it's made from dairy, those kind of things could potentially flare your bladder and cause increased urge frequency. So just something else to think about. Next on the list is citrus. So, orange juice, any type of acidic acid, acidity, acidic, I said it right the first time. Acidic fruits and vegetables and juice. Those things can irritate, can potentially irritate the bladder. Also tomato based things for that same reason can also irritate the bladder. That's going to be spaghetti sauce, ketchup, things like that. And the next thing is going to be spicy. So a lot of times people think about spicy, it could irritate their gut, they could give them indigestion, they might have painful bowel movements, but the spiciness might also irritate the bladder as well. So be mindful of that. And last and least list, I hate to say this because I do love this is sugar. Things that are sugary could flare up your bladder. So cakes, cookies, sweet stuff, sodas kind of is a double whammy because it's got the sugar and it's got the carbonation candy. So all of those things can potentially irritate your bladder. So when we're trying to have a happy, healthy bladder, we might want to do some investigating and seeing are any of these food items a, do we consume them? B, are they triggering us? And see if we make some modifications with how we consume them? Does that make things better? Again, general information. I can't say that I would never say cut all of this out because no one wants to live like that. But it might be just one or two things out of that list. For me, I don't want to project onto you as my audience, but I will say, for me, there's one thing on this list. Out of all of this list, there's one thing that I know oh, I forgot to say an artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners can also be a trigger for the bladder. So out of all of those things on this list, I've got one thing that's my trigger, just to put it out there. So it might not be everything. As a review, what can we do to have a happy, healthy bladder? We can drink adequate water for our body. We can not limit our fluid intake so that our body isn't making concentrated urine, and we can make sure that we're wearing cotton clothing so that our bodies can breathe and we don't irritate the skin and get infection. And then we want to be mindful of some foods that can trigger our bladder so that our bladder doesn't get irritated and so we don't have the increased urge and frequency. And just to run that down quickly, we've got artificial sweeteners, alcohol, carbonated drinks, caffeinated, caffeine, just in general, milk and milk products, citrusy things and spicy things. So there you have it. I hope it was helpful and I will see you next week with another episode. Thank you for listening to the Marrone Pelvic health Podcast. If you want to take the quiz to see if you would benefit from speaking to a Pelvic Health physical therapist, simply go to the link in the description or go to www.moronepelvichealth.com quiz. Again, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. And don't forget to tune in next week for another amazing episode.