Bladder leakage, known as urinary incontinence, is common in women. Everybody knows someone who laughs, sneezes, or coughs and pees themselves. Just because something is common, does not mean it is normal!
So, if you’re looking to get bladder control back, here is a quick guide of everything that you might want to know!
What will be covered about bladder leakage in this guide:
- What are bladder leakage and urinary incontinence in women?
- Why do women have bladder leakage?
- Common types of bladder leakage in women
- Common treatment for women with bladder leaks
What are bladder leakage and urinary incontinence in women?
According to the most recent study, approximately 50% of women have female urinary incontinence.
You read that right: approximately 50% of women will suffer from bladder leakage in their lifetime!
Urinary incontinence is an unexpected, unwanted loss of bladder control. Urinary incontinence can range from light leaking to severe leaking. Sometimes, it can be the need to urinate more frequently.
In part, bladder control loss could be due to the weakening of the pelvic floor muscles. Toning those muscles back up to their strength is very important for regaining bladder control.
Why do women have bladder leakage?
You have probably heard about the pelvic floor muscles when it comes to bladder leakage. The pelvic floor muscles are really important when it comes to bladder control.
What is the pelvic floor?
The pelvic floor muscles provide support to the organs (like the bladder and uterus) that lie on it.
Fun fact: Did you know the clitoris runs along the female pelvic floor? Strong pelvic floor muscles give you control over your bladder and a stronger response to orgasm.
Think of the pelvic floor muscles as a hammock. When that hammock gets weak or damaged, it starts to sag. Then it gives out and causes the organs to fall on top of each other.
When this happens, the pelvic floor can cause stress incontinence. This is a common form of bladder leakage – leaking when you laugh, cough or run.
Where is the pelvic floor?
The pelvic floor muscles are a layer of muscles that run along the bottom of the pelvic (again, think of these muscles kind of like a hammock).
What do the pelvic floor muscles do?
The pelvic floor muscles are used to support the pelvic organs (bladder, uterus, and visceral organs). This helps with bladder control and bladder leakage. But it could also help with posture and stronger response to the orgasm.
How do I keep pelvic floor muscles toned?
You want to make sure you are able to clench your pelvic floor muscles and relax them on command. You probably keep hearing this, but do your Kegel exercises! You also want to add in relaxation exercises too.
Squats, running, and repetitive motion actually weakens the pelvic floor muscles. This is why a lot of athletes have bladder control problems!
So make sure you do pelvic floor exercises to keep them toned to prevent issues like bladder leakage! We have laid out how to do them here, if you want to skip directly to it!
Common types of bladder leakage in women
Here are some of the more common types of urinary incontinence in women:
- Stress incontinence: Bladder leakage when you put pressure on your bladder by doing activities like laughing, sneezing, coughing, lifting something up, etc.
- Urge incontinence: All of a sudden you have a need to go to the bathroom and then BOOM: bladder leakage. Urge incontinence could also be the need to go to the bathroom frequently.
- Overflow incontinence: You have constant bladder leakage happening because your bladder does not empty completely when you go to the bathroom.
- Functional incontinence: A physical or mental impairment prevents you from making it to the bathroom in time. For example, arthritis makes it difficult to unbutton or unzip your pants in time.
- Mixed incontinence: A mix of one or more types of urinary incontinence
Common treatment for women with bladder leaks
- Kegels
- Physical Therapy
- Biofeedback
- Kegel Trainers
Kegels
We are all pretty familiar with the phrase “do your Kegels!” when it comes to bladder leakage BUT they are really are important. You just have to make sure that you are doing them correctly (hint: if you are not or unsure you are doing them correctly, Yarlap® has your back!).
When your pelvic floor has gone through a lot of pressure or they start to weaken, you should be doing Kegel exercises correctly.
However, over 50% of women cannot do a proper Kegel exercise correctly. This because the pelvic floor muscles are so hard to isolate. This is why Kegel trainers, like Yarlap®, are fantastic for women to maintain bladder control and prevent bladder leakage!
If you want to do Kegels on your own, you could be done by doing the following:
- Slowly clench your pelvic floor muscles under the bladder.
- Hold to the count of five, then relax the muscles (these exercises are known as slow pull-ups or long squeezes!)
- Then, do the same exercise quickly and immediately let go again (these exercises are known as fast pull-ups or short squeezes)
- Your goal is to do a long squeeze followed by ten short squeezes.
- Repeat this routine at 8-10 times at least three times a day for forever!
Key Reminder: Make sure not to squeeze other muscles while doing your Kegel exercises (like your abs, butt, or thighs). Doing kegel exercises are very difficult, but it is important to do them!
Many women are starting to choose FemTech devices to help them track their pelvic floor muscle exercises or to do the entire exercise for them.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is a great option because you have someone with a lot of knowledge physically present with you telling you how to do the right exercises and give checkups to encourage improvement.
Physical therapists often use biofeedback or NMES (neuromuscle electro stimulation like Yarlap®) devices to help patients do the exercises effectively.
Biofeedback for pelvic floor muscles
Pelvic floor muscles training with biofeedback something that we have all heard of in passing when it comes to bladder leakage.
Pelvic floor muscle training with biofeedback tells you how well you performed your Kegel exercises and reports those results back to you.
Electrodes are attached or inserted to send signals to a monitor to help you treat bladder leakage. Biofeedback is good! However, biofeedback may not effective if you are unable to control your muscles.
Biofeedback for pelvic floor muscles is excellent if you have pelvic floor muscle tone! Biofeedback uses electrodes that are attached or inserted to send signals to a monitor to help you treat bladder leakage.
While performing pelvic floor workouts with biofeedback, you must give it your full attention to be effective. Focusing on the exercise, the correct muscles, and timing is important to regain bladder control with biofeedback. Biofeedback tells you how well you performed your Kegel exercises and reports those results back to you!
Biofeedback may not be the most effective if you are unable to control your pelvic floor muscles in the first place. Since it shows you muscle movement, if you are unable to move your pelvic floor muscles — biofeedback might be a little difficult!
Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) like Yarlap®
According to research, over 50% of women who try to do a Kegel exercise for bladder leakage do them incorrectly, even with a pamphlet for instructions.
Northwestern University Department of Physical Therapy stated that “NMES has been used for muscle strengthening, maintenance of muscle mass and strength”.
NMES sends a signal into your muscles to do initiate exercise for you. It does not block pain as TENS devices do.
Like we said earlier if you are using your butt, abs, or thighs to do a Kegel — those are the wrong muscles! If you find Kegel exercises hard or you do not have enough time OR you think “I do not even know if I’m using the right muscles”, this is where NMES comes in!
NMES is commonly used by physical therapists.
Yarlap® is an NMES device for pelvic floor muscles reeducation for treating bladder leakage. Yarlap® is FDA cleared to treat female urinary incontinence by doing the pelvic floor muscles exercises for you.
Please Keep in Mind: that occasionally you will find devices online (like Amazon) that promote “Kegel and pelvic floor muscles trainers”. But, like any wellness device or anything that goes into your vagina: do your research before buying it. You want to make sure that these devices are FDA cleared for over-the-counter usage. This means they have been properly tested and have a quality control protocol in place.
Is Yarlap,® a good fit for you?
Is Yarlap® what you are looking for? Yarlap® might be a perfect fit for you.
- Do you have severe bladder leakage? Yarlap® can still work for you!
- Do you mild bladder leakage? Yarlap® can still work for you too!
- Want to prevent bladder leakage from happening to you? Yarlap® can still work for you as well!
Yarlap® sends a small, gentle signal into your pelvic floor muscles. It does the entire workout for you. You do not do the workout alongside Yarlap®. Just a quick 20 minute workouts that you do once a day to treat bladder leakage in women.
Yarlap® is FDA cleared to treat female urinary incontinence. It is also cleared to maintain continence (maintain bladder control) too.
Relevium Labs, Inc © 2020
If your doctor or healthcare professional has suggested that you do pelvic floor exercises or Kegel exercises to treat bladder leakage, Yarlap® could be a really great selection for you!
We know that Kegel exercises are very difficult to do. Our technology has lead to our president being published in The Journal of Women’s Health, Issues and Care, and crosses boundaries between sex and medicine that are rarely acknowledged, let alone traversed.
Yarlap® is an award-winning device to help with bladder leakage in women and improving sexual wellness. Yarlap® has won the FemTech Award and also won MedTech Magazine’s Award for Top 10 Devices to help OBGYN!
Bladder leakage is a common problem for women. With 1 in 3 women suffering from this issue, it is something that you should speak with your healthcare professional and girlfriends about!
You want to strengthen and tone the pelvic floor muscles to keep bladder leakage away and controlled. Doing exercises is usually the first form of treatment when it comes to bladder leaks. Oftentimes, it really hard to do the pelvic floor exercises to prevent bladder leakage.
But, there are options for you. Just because something is common, does not make it normal!
Remember, if you chose to go with Yarlap®, do not forget to use the Yarlap® coupon code 10OFFYARLAP for 10% off and free shipping!
