This is called Stress Incontinence, and you don’t need to live with it.
What is it? What can be done about it?
This is when day to day, in normal circumstances, you are able to hold your wee, and don’t leak.
But then with extra pressure or stress somewhere in your system, you are unable to hold it, and may leak a small dribble or a larger amount of urine.
This is not really a bladder problem per se, it is more a functional problem.
This means it has a far greater chance of being completely fixed with Osteopathy, and our hands on release techniques alongside rehab and specific exercises to help (this is not about squeezing), and we have a very good success rate in being able to help with this.
There will often be certain things that you do which cause the leaking..
Is it jumping, running, coughing, sneezing, laughing, or bending over? Or a few of these things?
So what can we do to help and how do we do it?
First we need to find out your individual reasons for the leaking. You are leaking with added pressure. So this means that the closure mechanism of the urinary bladder and the support systems (muscles/fascia/connective tissue) cannot go the extra mile to tighten quickly or with extra force or stress.
At our first appointment we will assess your whole body.
Some of the things that we are looking for which can cause or affect stress incontinence :
💜 Posture and gait.
💜 Spine, hips, feet, and pelvic position and mobility.
💜 Abdominal tension, strength and/or diastasis recti
💜 How you breathe and use your diaphragm.
💜 Whether you have balance in the glute muscles, hips and spine muscles, and myofascial chains through your body.
And much more…
We will then treat these areas using hands on Osteopathy and give you breathing techniques, abdominal exercises, postural advice and more, to help readdress the balance.
Pelvic floor and internal release work?
As Women’s Health Osteopaths, we can then use internal techniques to check the tone of the pelvic floor muscles, assess for scar tissue, and any pulling of the organs like the bladder, cervix and urethra.
Stress incontinence is often caused by birth, and what our bodies go through.
The urethra, bladder and cervix can get pulled over to one side or another.. This displaces our functional bladder closing system.
So often I find the urthera and cervix can be pulled off to the left, commonly after birth this is palpated.
When this happens, our body cannot deal with the increased pressures so well, as nothing is stacked up quite as it should be, and it is all a bit off balance. This can be as a result of birth trauma, or baby just pushing things around as it makes its way out, or by ligament tension and strain. There can often be a super tight tension pattern on some of the pelvic floor muscles which will also impact this, and cause further stress incontinence.
So by helping the body get back into balance again, we can help you get ‘leak free’, ditch the pads, and enjoy life without worrying that you may leak just by coughing, or going to the gym. Definitely time to do a HAPPY DANCE!!!!!
We use both external and internal techniques to help, but it is completely up to you which approach you would like and are happy with.
It really is a game changer.
So let us to help you.
We will find out your individual cause of stress incontinence (everyone is different), and then address the true cause and give you exercises to do to help you longer term get strong. And no, this isn’t going to be kegels!!!! Functional, whole body exercise, and breathing techniques, core exercises and Squats, can all be wonderful at keeping your body leak free.
Any questions at all, please feel free to email us or DM us.
We really are passionate about helping you get back to just wearing knickers with no worries!!!
Thanks for reading, Jo. 🙂
Jo Day is the founder and principal osteopath at Herts Osteopathy, St. Albans, with an extensive background in exercise, pilates and rehab, and post graduate specialism in Women’s Health Osteopathy and education.
#pelvicfloorlove #leaking #positivebirth #POSTNATALCHECK #pelvicfloor #csection #episiotomy #scartherapy #bladder #cervix #diastasisrecti #core