Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI), is the involuntary leaking of urine that occurs during activities that causes an increase in pressure in your abdomen and on your bladder and surrounding muscles.
This can occur during coughing, sneezing, lifting weights, or impact sports like running and skipping. This can happen to both women who have had children and those who have not, and doesn’t only affect ageing women. SUI in fact also affects many young women, including those within the female sporting population as well.
Stress incontinence happens when the pelvic floor muscles and supporting tissues of the bladder weaken. When the bladder fills with urine, it expands. Any activity that puts pressure on the pelvic and abdominal muscles such as bending over, laughing, sneezing, and lifting heavy objects can lead to leakage of urine when those surrounding muscles are weakened.
The muscles in the pelvic floor, as well as the neck of the bladder/urinary sphincter, can lose their strength due to:
- Childbirth
- Incorrect breathing pattens and form during certain exercises such as weight lifting
- High-impact activities such as jumping and running, over the course of several years without proper core activation
- Disease that leads to chronic sneezing, coughing or vomiting
- Obesity
- Smoking, which can lead to frequent bouts of coughing and respiratory issues
A Women’s Health Physio can help treat SUI by assessing your pelvic floor muscles, as well as surrounding muscles such as your abdominals, hip flexor and adductors etc which can all affect how the pelvic floor works.
After completing your physiotherapy assessment, they will be able to assist you in learning how to perform certain exercises correctly to strengthen the muscles, while also helping you to either tighten or relax those muscles. You can have tight muscles that are still weak, so it is important for your Women’s Health Physio to be able to assess this for you. Similar to other exercise regimens, the effectiveness of pelvic floor exercises depends on the regular performance of these movements.
Here at DX Physio, we use a real-time Ultrasound machine to be able show you your muscles and help to provide biofeedback to reinforce proper contraction and use of these important muscles.
If you are suffering from Stress Urinary Incontinence, please book in today to help address the issue and get you feeling relief as quickly as possible.
