What Is a Healthy Bladder?

Today’s post first ran February 4 on HuffPost Healthy Living.
Many women can take a road trip, jump on a trampoline with their kids, go shopping, or go for a morning run without thinking twice about their bladder. For others, though, this simply isn’t the case. Some women have a condition physicians refer to as “bladder on the brain” – meaning they constantly keep aware of the nearest bathroom due to strong, uncontrollable urges to void. Such compulsions can even interrupt daily plans and tasks and cause the sufferer to continually think about preventing urine leakage, protecting clothing from wetness, and escaping the stigma of making frequent trips to the bathroom.
Are you a woman with “bladder on the brain”? How do you know if your bladder is healthy?
First, a little background: The bladder’s job is to hold urine until it is a good time to urinate. When our bladder is working normally, we can fully participate in our lives: go to school, go shopping, take car or plane trips, be physically active, or sit through a long movie without worrying about whether or not our bladder can do its job.
For women, normal bladder activity means the ability to hold 10 to 16 ounces of liquid (think a standard-sized plastic water bottle or a “grande” Starbucks beverage) and using the restroom every three to four hours (no more than twice overnight). It’s normal for this frequency to change depending on what we drink throughout...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - February 22, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Women's Health Source Type: blogs