Leaking of any form sucks, but leaking pee is especially annoying and sometimes embarrassing. It’s a common problem and, sadly, isn’t just a little pesky nuisance that’ll go away if you ignore it. Ignoring urinary leakage may actually lead to more complicated issues in the future, making it harder to manage. The severity of urinary incontinence ranges from a small leak when you sneeze, jump, or cough to sudden uncontrollable urges to urinate that make it difficult to get to the bathroom in time.

Many fitness and health gurus will, most likely, recommend kegels or exercises that contract or tighten your pelvic floor. However, it isn’t always an issue with your bladder or pelvic floor muscles. Yes, they may be affected or may be presenting the more noticeable symptoms, but more often than not, urinary incontinence is a whole body issue.

What is Urinary Incontinence?

Urinary incontinence is a loss of bladder control that affects people in different ways. The most common types of urinary incontinence include stress incontinence and urge incontinence — an overactive bladder. Incontinence is likely to affect approximately twice as many women as men. This is most often due to pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. Pregnancy stresses and strains the muscles in the pelvic region, which may often lead to stress incontinence. However, urinary leakage is not a normal or natural part of aging and is often a sign of an imbalance in the body.

Urinary incontinence/leakage

If you are suffering from urinary leakage, the chances are that this issue is part of a whole body imbalance. No need to freak out! A whole body imbalance merely means that incontinence is not about your pelvic floor alone. It is about the container that your pelvic floor lives in. Your body. Treating the pelvic floor alone (Kegels) is symptom-targeted rather than root cause.

Trying to treat symptoms in isolation does not allow you to truly identify and correct the source of the imbalance. Often, the symptoms we notice do not originate in the affected area. Just like a foot injury may eventually lead to leg, hip, butt, and back pain, urinary incontinence can be a symptom that did not originate in the pelvic floor.

Symptoms of Urinary Incontinence

Some of the most common symptoms of bladder incontinence are:

• Leaking urine during exercise, lifting, bending, or other daily activities
• Sudden and strong oncoming urge to urinate
• Urinating without warning or feeling of urgency
• Urinating in your sleep
• Difficulty holding urine or making it to the restroom on time
• Recurrent urinary tract infections

Why is My Bladder Leaking all of a Sudden?

Urinary incontinence can happen for various reasons. However, it is not always a sign of something severely wrong. Often, the case may be related to changes your body undergoes during or post pregnancy or imbalances in your body.

Some of the more common causes include:

Pregnancy:

Hormonal shifts and imbalances, as well as your growing baby adding pressure to your bladder and pelvic floor, may lead to incontinence.

Childbirth:

A vaginal delivery may weaken the muscles required to control urination as well as lead to other issues, such as pelvic organ prolapse.

Aging:

Although incontinence is not a normal part of aging, the muscles may become weaker with age and bladder contractions may become more frequent as you get older.

Menopause:

During menopause, your body undergoes a lot of hormonal and physical changes. These changes may aggravate incontinence.

Hysterectomy:

A woman’s uterus and bladder depend on many of the same muscles, ligaments, and structures for support. Any surgical procedure that may involve or compromise a woman’s reproductive system may damage the pelvic floor and supporting muscles and ligaments, which can lead to incontinence.

Enlarged prostate:

In men, an enlarged prostate can lead to male incontinence.

What are the Types of Urinary Incontinence?

The common types of incontinence include:

• Stress incontinence — More common in pregnant people or those who delivered vaginally. May be triggered by coughing, laughing, bending, lifting, jumping, or sneezing.
• Urge incontinence — More often an issue with aging and characterized by increased urinary frequency and urgency (overactive bladder)
• Overflow incontinence — Overflow incontinence is characterized by dribbling urine, increased frequency of urination, and inability or feeling of incompleteness after urinating.
• Mixed incontinence — It is possible to experience a combination of the symptoms and types mentioned above.

Read more about leek pee at Lauren Ohayon’s Blog