As a
young girl and then a young woman, I heard a lot of things about being pregnant
and having babies. I was pregnant for
our daughter in 1988 when I was 28 years old.
That was the year I discovered that there were a lot of things that no
one ever told me. Oh, women joke about
having to pee often, but they don’t really tell you all the gory details.
I was
pregnant again the following year, but miscarried at about 12 weeks. And then pregnant again about a year after
that, and again miscarried at about 14 weeks.
In each of those pregnancies, I was already wearing maternity clothes by
the time I miscarried… meaning I was big in the belly area. And even though I was no longer pregnant
after the miscarriage, my body felt pregnant.
My uterus was all “dusted and cleaned” out, but it was still enlarged,
putting additional pressure on a full bladder, so all the frequent need to
urinate that comes with pregnancy for months was an experience I had to go
through to some extent during those times.
My
fourth and final pregnancy was in 1994, when our son was born. Sam was a big baby, and during the final
weeks of pregnancy, I believe he kept his feet on my bladder 24-7. I peed often.
No, really. I peed OFTEN.
Peeing
often affects the size of your bladder.
Who knew?... But even if you have never experienced a pregnancy, we are
still taught as young children that when you have that urge to pee, quick!
hurry! run and go pee! Good girl! GOOD girl!
The
size of your bladder has an impact on incontinence. As adult women, we actually can train our
bladders to be smaller or larger. The
more often we give into the urge to pee, that is, if we pee frequently, the
smaller we train our bladder to be.
And
those Kegel exercises we learn about are not really explained very well. I heard about those, of course, long before
pregnancies. Probably covered in several
articles in Cosmopolitan. Keep that area
tight, women, and your man/men will appreciate it and so will you! A tight tata will give you a more intense
orgasm! And who doesn’t want that?!
Forget
that! The most important aspect of
exercising “that area,” aka your pelvic floor, is to prevent incontinence later
in life. Seriously, if you’re in your 20’s,
pay heed – you will care about this all too soon! Much more than you will care about more
intense orgasms. Not that you won’t care
about that… just not as much as caring about being able not to piss yourself.
And
those Kegel exercises are usually explained by telling you to stop urination
mid-stream, and then work those muscles.
Ever hear a woman in the stall next to you peeing like she’s turning a
faucet on, then off, then on, then off… Kegel!
As
years went by, I found myself doing what so many, many women do:
1) Squeezing legs together for sneezing or
coughing
2) Leaking a little (or a lot) with a great bout
of laughter
3) Staying away from trampolines and horseback
riding
4) Etc etc etc
5) and oh yeah, wearing panty protection 24-7
And
then I hit the perfect storm for incontinence when I was 48 years old. In mid-January 2008, I had a neck surgery to
repair my C6 vertebrae to remove a piece of it that was broken off and pressing
into my spinal cord. As a result, my C5,
C6 and C7 are fused with steel rods and brackets. The morning after that surgery, I felt
supreme relief. But then, I got an
infection and ended up with a second surgery a couple of weeks later on the
same site to remove a big pocket of puss.
Then under anesthetic a third time to have a PIC line inserted, and I
took antibiotics for 3 months.
During
that time, I was taking pain medications – Vicodin, Valium and Flexeril, and I
think Darvocet was in there, too. I
spent a lot of time on our sofa, because that ended up being the spot I could
find some comfort laying down. The
antibiotics made me so ill that between that and the physical pain emanating
from my neck, I pretty much lived on that sofa for weeks and weeks. At age 48, that was my first major experience
with incontinence. One day, instead of
taking Vicodin, I decided to switch it up and take Darvocet. My prescription for Vicodin was for me to
take 2 pills, so I took 2 Darvocet without thinking, but I should have taken
only 1 pill. I was zonked out for over
12 hours. I remember feeling my body
sink very, very deeply into the sofa.
Then I woke up on a very cold, wet sofa cushion. Holy crap.
My husband, Kevin, had tried to wake me and was actually to the point of
being excessively worried when I finally decided to return to the land of the
living. And then he took such good care
of me, helping me to get off the sofa, out of my soaking wet nightgown and into
the shower. He took the cover off the
sofa cushion, washed the cover and tried to wash the piss out of the
cushion. He dried my tears, took a
cushion from the love seat and put it on the sofa for me. And major kudos to Flexsteel, the brand of
our sofa and loveseat – because our sofa
has a lifetime warranty on the cushions, and Flexsteel didn’t even care that I
ruined the cushion by pissing on it!
When I called them to order a new cushion, they sent me one free – didn’t
even charge me postage!
When I
eventually returned to sleeping in our bed on a regular basis, I learned
something else new… when you get out of your bed, you don’t really even think
about it. Likely you sit up and swing
your feet to the floor in a smooth motion, and probably most people reading
this sentence right now are trying to think to themselves, “How is it exactly
that I do get out of bed? Hmmm…”
What I
learned was that after my neck surgery I could no longer just “get out of bed.” Instead of rising up and swing my feet to the
floor, I had to roll almost over onto my stomach and push myself up. So every morning, with that full morning
bladder and not yet fully awake, I would try to get out of bed the usual way by
a 48-year force of habit, which would send screaming red hot pokers of pain
from my neck through my entire body. And
then I would pee, a little or not so little depending on the day and the level
of pain. Oh, good times.
That
was the year that my body went to hell in a handbasket, including my bladder
and pelvic floor muscles. I was going to
physical therapy for my neck, and then I found myself going to physical therapy
for incontinence.
And I
bless that physical therapist for her fine teaching skills, amazing, wonderful
bedside manner and empathy.
Here’s
what I learned and want to pass on to every woman I can. And if you’re in your 20’s reading this and
think this doesn’t apply to you, baby, think again. You’ll be 40 all too soon.
First,
train your bladder to be larger.
On
your first morning pee, make sure you empty your bladder as much as you
can. And isn’t that a wonderful
feeling? My 4th favorite feeling.
Also,
try waiting as long as possible between urinations throughout your day, and
again, take time to fully empty your bladder.
This is to train your bladder to be as large as possible. Size does matter, ladies. And helps you to sleep through the night
without having to get up and go pee when you should be deep into REM sleep.
After
your morning starts, you’ve had coffee or whatever, you should try not peeing
more than every 4 or 5 hours throughout your day and evening. Obviously if your schedule is to pee every
hour, you’re going to have to build yourself up to a longer length of time
between urinations. And in the evening,
wait until just prior to bed to pee.
Do NOT
start and stop your pee stream. This
actually can do more to cause incontinence than to prevent it!
Exercise
your pelvic floor muscles often. You can
do this almost anytime – driving in your car, sitting in a chair, even walking
with your grocery cart. But here’s the
catch:
These
exercises should start at
your sphincter muscle, i.e., your butthole, yes, your butthole.
Tighten
that anal opening and then take that tightening all the way up to your urinary
tract opening, i.e., your pee hole. You
should be able to tighten that whole area without feeling the movement on the
outside of your hip or butt. These are
your pelvic floor muscles; it’s not just about your dainty little lady parts… it
has to include your asshole. Hear me and
listen.
Exercises
include tightening in 3 steps, start with your butthole and tighten and hold,
count of 5, move forward a bit and tighten and hold count of 5, and then move forward
to your pee hole, tighten and hold count of 5, release, count of 5 and start
again, doing at least 5 reps. Another
exercise is to tighten the entire area all together, count of 5, release, count
of 5, 10, 15, etc, and again 5 reps.
So
that’s the secret I learned: train your bladder to be as large as possible and
exercise your pelvic floor muscles correctly and often.
Pass
it on.
