Advice on bladder problems
If you experience bladder pain or pass any blood when weeing, it is important that you inform your GP and do not wait to be seen by our service.
Most of us wee between 4 to 8 times per day. Getting up once a night if you are under the age of 50 and twice per night over the age of 50 is considered ‘normal’ bladder behaviour.
Needing to go more than eight times a day or waking up in the night to go to the bathroom could mean you are drinking too much and (or) too close to bedtime. If you are getting up more than 1 to 2 times a night, try and have your last drink 1 to 2 hours before you go to bed.
Try sitting with your feet up when you are at home, have a rest with your feet up or on the bed for at least an hour in the afternoon.
Make sure you drink enough liquids: 5 to 8 mugs (3 to 4 pints, 1.5 to 2 litres per day). Avoid liquids which irritate the bladder such as caffeine (including tea, coffee and hot chocolate), fizzy drinks (including fizzy water and juices), citrus juices and alcohol.
The best types of liquid to drink are still water, decaffeinated fluids, still dilute juices (not fizzy).
Hot chocolate and green tea will make you wee more, so try malted milk drinks like Ovaltine or Horlicks as a replacement.
The less you drink, the more you wee. This is because concentrated urine irritates receptors in the bladder which make us want to get rid of urine faster.
If you struggle to drink recommended amounts, you could consider soup, jelly or milk puddings or you could consider buying Jelly Drops – they look like sweets but are 95% water.
- Email: hello@jellydrops.com
- Visit the Jelly Drops website
If you are weeing frequently, try to increase the amount of time between each visit to the toilet by using pelvic floor contractions (see below) and hold on a little longer to increase how much your bladder can hold. Start with 5 to 10 minutes at a time and then slowly increase it.
If you have an urgent desire to get to the toilet and sometimes leak from your bladder before you get there, try and use your pelvic floor to reduce the sensation. When the urge comes on, sit or stand still and use your pelvic floor muscle (see below) to try and settle the urgency before going to the toilet. It does take practice but is very effective.
If you find that you leak on coughing, sneezing, standing, lifting or walking, this could be because of a weakened pelvic floor muscle. Strengthening your pelvic floor muscle can help with this.
Your pelvic floor muscles surround the bladder and urethra (the tube that carries urine from your bladder out of your body) and control the flow of urine as you wee.
Weak or damaged pelvic floor muscles can cause urinary incontinence, so exercising these muscles is often recommended. The guide to this exercise is found below.
